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COPYRIGHT DEPOSre 



THE ATHENAEUM PRESS SERIES 

G. L. KITTREDGE AND C. T. WINCHESTER 
GENERAL EDITORS 



Series Hnnouncement 

The "Athenaeum Press Series" 
includes the choicest works of Eng- 
lish literature in editions carefully 
prepared for the use of schools, col- 
leges, libraries, and the general 
reader. Each volume is edited by 
some scholar who has made a special 
study of an author and his period. 
The Introductions are biographical 
and critical. In particular they set 
forth the relation of the authors to 
their times and indicate their impor- 
tance in the development of litera- 
ture. A Bibliography and Notes 
accompany each volume. 




From Basire's engraving of the painting by William Hogarth 



Htbensum press Sertes 



SELECTED ESSAYS 



OF 



HENRY FIELDING 



Edited 
With Introduction and Notes 



BY 



GORDON HALL GEROULD, B.Litt. (Oxon.) 

Preceptor of English in Princeton 
University 



GINN & COMPANY 

BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON 



LIBRARY at JONGHtSS 

JUL 13 jyot) 

CLASS O-' AAC. Nw 



COPY B. 



L..^ 






Copyright, 1905, by 
GORDON HALL GEROULD 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
SS-7 



GINN & COMPANY • PRO- 
PRIETORS • BOSTON • U.S.A. 



V 

PREFACE 



-(i:"^ 



This selection of the essays of Henry Fielding is designed 
to introduce him as an essay writer rather than as a novelist. 
It is an attempt to show his mastery of prose style and vigorous 
thought, quite apart from his yet more extraordinary mastery 
of narrative. It may serve, I hope, to give a practical ac- 
quaintance with the man and his work to some readers who 
for reasons of youth, or distaste, or the force of tradition have 
not yet learned their Fielding in his novels. Some may be 
genuinely surprised to find these essays unexceptionable in 
delicacy, not unfit reading virginibus puerisqiie ; though lovers 
of Fielding's art do not need to be told that his coarsest 
passages are less liable to do harm than much of the meretri- 
cious work that young misses and growing boys are nowadays 
permitted to read unblushingly and unthinkingly. This little 
book certainly contains nothing improper, and it has been 
made with the one idea of giving a representative selection 
of the essays. It contains by no means all of Fielding's work 
in this field, though perhaps the cream of it. In order to 
avoid the danger of scrappiness, the essays have been arranged 
not chronologically but with an attempt at logical sequence. 
Reference to the chronological list at the end of the volume 
will show instantly whence any given selection is taken. 

The text is based on first or second editions in most cases, 
though Murphy's edition of 1 762 has been used for the extracts 
from The Covent-Ga7^de7i/o2/riial dindXh&Jour?tal of a Voyage 
to Lisbon. Murphy's text of the Works has been reprinted 
over and over again by subsequent editors, though except 



vi • PREFACE 

perhaps for the posthumous works it has no real authority. 
As a consequence, the current editions abound in readings 
that, to say the best for them, almost certainly were not Field- 
ing's own. It has seemed to me better, therefore, as I have 
not had access to all the editions published in the author's 
lifetime and so have been unable to make a critical text, to 
give a reprint of some one specified edition in each case. 
Thus we can read the words as Fielding once wrote them in 
any case, which is better than reading what the careless 
Murphy chose to print, even if we miss a few changes made 
by the author himself. The only liberty I have taken with the 
text has been to modernize the capitalization. A very few 
omissions are indicated in the notes, and three or four words 
necessary for the sense have been supplied in brackets. 
Changed titles are also indicated by brackets. It is difficult 
to annotate Fielding without making the comment burden- 
some ; but I have tried to do it as briefly as is consistent with 
the proper elucidation of the text. 

Grateful acknowledgment is due several friends and col- 
leagues who have answered cheerfully the numerous questions 
propounded to them from time to time, to the general editors 
of the series, and also to Mr. W. C. Lane for permission to use 
the library of Harvard University. 

G. H. G. 

Bryn Mawr College 



CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION: page 

I. Biographical Sketch ix 

XL Fielding's Works xxxii 

III. Fielding's Philosophy of Life and Prose Style Ixxiii 

IV. Bibliography Ixxx 

TEXT: 

I. Of Prologues i 

II. An Invocation 3 

III. The Bill of Fare to the Feast 6 

IV. The Comic Epic in Prose 9 

V. Shewing what Kind of a History this is ; what 

IT IS LIKE, and what IT IS NOT LIKE . . . . l6 

VI. Matter Prefatory in Praise of Biography ... 18 
VII. Of writing Lives in General, and particularly 
of Pamela ; with a Word by the bye of Colley 

ClBBER AND OTHERS 22 

VIII. Containing Five Pages of Paper 24 

IX. Of those who lawfully may, and of those who 

MAY NOT WRITE SUCH HISTORIES AS THIS ... 28 

X. Of the Serious in Writing ; and for what Pur- 
pose IT IS introduced 34 

XI. Containing Instructions very Necessary to be 

PERUSED BY MODERN CRITICS 39 

XII. A Crust for the Critics 42 

XIII. A Wonderful Long Chapter concerning the 

Marvellous 47 

XIV. Shewing what is to be deemed Plagiarism in a 

Modern Author and what is to be consid- 
ered as Lawful Prize 55 

vii 



viii CONTENTS 

Text — conthmed : page 

XV. An Essay to prove that an Author will write 

BETTER, for HAVING SOME KNOWLEDGE OF 

THE Subject on which he writes .... 59 

XVI. A Literary Conversation in Elysium .... 63 

XVII. Comments upon Authors 66 

XVIII. The Literary Republic 72 

XIX. The Purpose of Letters 78 

XX. Shewing the Wholesome Uses drawn from re- 
cording THE Achievements of those Won- 
derful Productions of Nature called 

Great Men 83 

XXI. The Character of a Great Thief 86 

XXII. Matters Political 90 

XXIII. A Comparison between the World and the 

Stage 96 

XXIV. Moral Reflections by Joseph Andrews ... 99 
XXV. High People and Low People 102 

XXVI. On Liberty 104 

XXVII. The Power of the Mob 107 

XXVIII. On Humorous Characters 112 

XXIX. Contemporary Education 117 

XXX. An Essay on Conversation 122 

XXXI. An Essay on Nothing 159 

XXXII. A Farewell to the Reader 170 

NOTES 173 

Chronological List of the Essays selected, with Refer- 
ence to the Works from which they have been taken 213 

INDEX 217 



INTRODUCTION 
I 

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

"Our immortal Fielding," wrote Gibbon,^ "was of the 
younger branch of the Earls of Denbigh, who drew their origin 
from the Counts of Hapsburgh. The successors of Charles V 
may disdain their brethren of England : but the romance of 
Tom Jones ^ that exquisite picture of humour and manners, will 
outlive the palace of the Escurial and the imperial Eagle of 
Austria." In contrast to the splendor of this panegyric may 
be set the circumstances of Fielding's life. Like most citizens 
of the republic of letters, of which he wrote so pleasantly,^ he 
knew early and well both struggle and disappointment. His 
descent from the houses of Hapsburgh and Denbigh did not 
save him from poverty or the consequences of his own reckless 
youth. 

Undoubtedly Fielding was of excellent birth. He was the 
son of Edmund Fielding, a soldier who served under Marl- 
borough and who rose before his death to the grade of major 
general. Edmund was the grandson of George, Earl of 
Desmond, who came to that title by a curious bargain made 
in his favor by his uncle, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, 
at the time when the earldom of Desmond was created.^ This 
George Fielding was the second son of the first Earl of Den- 
bigh, so that the novelist was a scion of the cadet branch of 

^Miscellaneous IVor/es, I, 41 c,. 

2 T/ie Covent-Gaj'den Jotirnal^ no. xxiii (see pp. 72-78 of this volume). 
^ The Dramatic Works of Sir William D* Avenant (ed. Maidment 
and Logan), I, 311, 312. 

ix 



X INTRODUCTION 

that house. Edmund Fielding married for his first wife Sarah, 
daughter of Sir Henry Gould, Knt.,of Sharpham Park, Somerset. 
It has been conjectured with some probability ^ that the match 
was a secret one. At all events, Sarah Fielding continued to 
live at Sharpham Park, and there on April 22, 1707, their 
first son, Henry, was born. 

After the death of Sir Henry in 17 10, Captain Fielding 
removed with his family to East Stour, Dorsetshire, where in 
November of the same year was born Sarah Fielding, who 
became the author of David Simple and numerous other works 
which were regarded by a rather limited circle as only less 
excellent than those of her illustrious brother. Of Henry's 
childhood, as is natural, we know next to nothing. For his 
early education he was intrusted to " a certain Mr. Oliver," 
who was probably the clergyman of a neighboring village. 
The unenviable portrait of Parson Trulliber in Joseph Andrews 
is said ^ to have been fashioned from recollections of this 
teacher; but whether or not such was the case there is no 
means of knowing. 

In 1 71 8 Mrs. Fielding died. It was shortly after this event, 
probably, that Henry was sent to Eton College. Of his career 
at school we are not better informed than of his childhood. 
Certainly he must have acquired there the knowledge of the 
classics which he was perhaps too fond of parading in later 
days. As certainly he made friends with at least two men who 
were to achieve distinction in public life, — George Lyttelton 
and Charles Hanbury, the former of whom became a states- 
man of acknowledged worth ^ and the latter, as Sir Charles 
Hanbury Williams, a famous wit and a useful if not altogether 
reputable politician. From his later life we can imagine what 

1 Dobson, Henry Fielding (revised and enlarged ed.), 4. 

2 Murphy, Essay on the Life and Genitts of Hetiry Fielding, Esq. 
2 He was created Baron Lyttelton in 1756. 



INTRODUCTION xi 

he was as a schoolboy, robust and lively, fully as much interested 
in sport as in study, and not averse to madcap pranks. Indeed, 
in Tom Jones he describes with the vigor of feeling recollection 
the " birchen altar " where he has sacrificed " with true Spartan 
devotion." How long he remained at Eton we do not know, 
but probably till he was seventeen or eighteen years of age. 
About this time, according to the most accurate of his biog- 
raphers,^ he fell desperately in love with a young lady of 
Dorsetshire and wooed her with an assiduity that was alto- 
gether displeasing to her friends. She was soon removed to 
another county, however ; and the young man, apparently not 
long after, was sent off to Leyden. 

Of his career at the University of Leyden little or nothing 
is known. It has usually been stated ^ that he studied law 
there under ''the learned Vitriarius " and that he remained 
abroad until late in the year 1727 or the early part of 1728.^ 
According to the tradition, his return was finally hastened by 
the failure of remittances from his father.* But an entry in 
the great register of the university, which has apparently been 
read very carelessly hitherto,^ gives us some definite informa- 
tion on this point. For the year 1728, " Rectore Johanne 
Wesselio," ^ in the list of students admitted " in membrum 
Academiae," ^ we read: "Mar. 16 Henricus Fielding Anglus. 
20, L." This indicates that on March 16, 1728, Fielding was 
granted his degree by the Faculty of Letters, being then twenty 
years of age. As a matter of fact, he reached his majority in 

1 Dobson, p. 6. ^Dobson, 12. 

2 Murphy, I, 11; Dobson, 11. * pobson, 11. 

^Dobson states in a footnote, 12, that Peacock's Index to English- 
speaking Students zvho have graduated at Leyden University, iSSji P- 35? 
says that "Fielding's name occurs under date of 16 March, 1728 "; but 
Peacock or Dobson failed to note the school. 

'° Albu7?i Studiosoruni Academiae Ltigdimo Batavae, MDLXXV- 
MDCCCLXXV. 7vi. 



xii INTRODUCTION 

the following month. This disposes of the old belief that he 
studied law at Leyden, for the Faculty of Letters was a part 
of the School of Liberal Arts. It likewise explains the reason 
for his return — he had finished his course of study. Unfor- 
tunately it does not explain all the chronological difficulties, 
since, as we shall soon see, his first play was produced in 
London a month before he took his degree. It is more prob- 
able, however, that the play was put on the stage before his 
return than that the degree was granted in absentia. In 
default of further evidence we may conclude that he went 
back to England soon after the i6th of March, 1728. That 
his literary activity was justified by the nature of his studies at 
the university is an interesting fact that follows from the notice 
quoted above. He had evidently already made literary plans 
and had tried his hand at satire and play writing before he 
took his plunge into the troubled waters of London. 

Although his return to England cannot longer be regarded 
as due to the failure of remittances, the young author soon 
knew the pinch of poverty. His father made him an allowance 
of two hundred pounds a year, but he seems to have been 
singularly remiss about paying it.^ Presumably the fact that 
about this time he married again ^ made him entirely unable to 
give his eldest son anything beyond occasional gifts. However 
that may he, here was young Fielding in London, robust and 
pleasure-loving, full of high spirits and fond of good clothes, 
good fare, and good society. To satisfy his wants he had 
to choose, in his own phrase, between the professions of 
"hackney-coachman and hackney- writer." What so natural 
as that he should turn to the form of literature which then 

1 This allowance was continued during the following years, but, as 
Fielding once said, "anybody might pay it that would." 

2 The most notable son of the marriage was John, later Sir John 
Fielding. 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

offered the greatest prospects of gain and reputation to an 
ambitious young man, and become a playwright? 

There were at that time four theatres in London, which 
divided popular patronage among them, — the Opera House in 
the Haymarket, built by Van Brugh for a playhouse but subse- 
quently the home of Italian opera ; the New-Theatre or French 
House in the Haymarket ; the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields 
which had long been in the hands of the Riches, father and 
son ; and finally the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane. It was at 
the last-named house that Fielding's first comedy, Love in 
Several Masques, was produced during February, 1728. The 
play was well received, though somewhat eclipsed by Gay's 
Beggar's Opera which happened to be brought out at nearly 
the same time. 

In spite of this measured success the young author did not 
immediately follow up the play with another. It was not till 
1730 that he wrote a second comedy, and then probably 
because he was badly in debt and in urgent need of money. 
From this time, however, he was definitely wedded to the 
stage and wrote with the ardor which was characteristic of 
him to the day of his death. In the year 1730 alone he pro- 
duced The Temple Beau, a double piece called The Author'' s 
Farce and The Pleasures of the Tow7i, The Coffee-House Politi- 
cian; or, The Justice caught in his own Trap, and the burlesque 
Tom Thumb in its first form. The first of these, like the 
earlier comedy, was an imitation of Congreve. The second, 
with its disregard for stage convention and its sharp satire of 
contemporary conditions, doubtless embodied much of Field- 
ing's experience with literary men and publishers ; and it 
showed in clearer light the originality of conception which in 
later years, when he came to his own as a writer of essays and 
novels, shone so brilliantly. The Coffee-House Politicia?i was 
a clever farce in the same vein, but Tom Thumb outdid both 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

and may be regarded without exaggeration as a masterpiece 
of burlesque. It was reproduced the following year in enlarged 
form as The Tragedy of Tragedies ; or, the Life and Death of 
7 0771 Thumb the Great. In the same year were brought out The 
Letter Writers ; or, A New Way to Keep a Wife at LLoTTie, The 
Grub-Street Opera, and The Lottery. The overflowing high 
spirits of To77i Thimib and the brisk wit of the other pieces 
captured the town, and for the time being undoubtedly 
relieved their author from the pressure of want. 

In 1732 Fielding produced four plays, — The Modern LLus- 
ba7id, The Debauchees ; or, Thefesuit Caught, The Cove7it Gar- 
den Tragedy, and an adaptation of Moliere's Medeci7i Tnalgre lui 
which he called The Mock- Doctor ; or, The Dumb Lady Cur'd. 
Such a number of plays argues hasty and even careless writing ; 
but they served their immediate purpose, — to fill Harry Field- 
ing's yawning pockets. To them was added, early in 1733, 
The Miser, an adaptation of Moliere's VAvare, which replaced 
the earlier versions in English and was somewhat grudgingly 
praised by Voltaire. According to the old tradjtion. Fielding 
was so hard pressed for money during this year that he kept 
a theatrical booth at St. Bartholomew's Fair. This has been 
shown ^ to be a slander, due to the confusion of Henry Field- 
ing with one Timothy Fielding, a second-rate actor who had a 
minor part in The Miser and was the proprietor of a booth at 
the great festival. Nevertheless, there is sufficient evidence 
that in spite of his earnings as a playwright, Henry Fielding, 
the brilliant young scion of the house of Denbigh, led a kind 
of life at this time which was both precarious and unedifying. 
There is no use in burking the facts. He plunged into excesses 
which he repented in all sincerity ^ later on. He was both a 
rake and a spendthrift. He was also very lazy. A curious 

1 By F. Latreille, Notes and Queries, 1875, 5^^ series, III, 502. 

2 See, for example, A Journey from this World to the Next. 



INTRODUCTION xv 

burlesque Author'' s Will, quoted by Mr. Austin Dobson,^ shows 
that he was regarded by his contemporaries as guilty of both 
carelessness and haste : 

" I give and bequeath to my very negligent Friend Henry 
Drama, Esq., all my INDUSTRY. And whereas the World 
may think this an unnecessary Legacy, forasmuch as the said 
Henry Drama, Esq., brings on the Stage four Pieces every 
Season ; yet as such Pieces are always wrote with uncommon 
Rapidity, and during such fatal Intervals only as the Stocks 
have been on the Fall, this Legacy will be of use to him to 
revise and correct his Works. Furthermore, for fear the said 
Henry Drama should make an ill Use of the said Industry, 
and expend it all on a Ballad, it's my Will the said Legacy 
should be paid him by equal Portions, and as his Necessities 
may require." 

Quite to the same purport is the portrait in the anonymous 
Seasonable Reproof , 1735 :^ 

F g, who yesterday appear'd so rough, 

Clad in coarse Frize, and plaister'd down with Snuff, 
See how his Instant gaudy Trappings shine ; 
What Play-house Bard was ever seen so fine ! 
But this, not from his Humour flows, you'll say, 
But mere Necessity ; — for last Night lay 
In Pawn, the Velvet which he wears to-Day. 

Yet there is no doubt that tradition has done him wrong, 
and that even his great admirer and disciple, Thackeray, did 
him wrong in his immortal sketch.^ At his worst Fielding was, 
after all, no common Grub-Street sot. He had the training 
and the instincts of a gentleman, added to which he possessed 
a mind of gigantic mold. It can be asserted with confidence 
that he never did a mean act or loved vice qua vice. 

^ 3^' 37- ^ Dobson, 35. 

^ In English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century. 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

After a rather idle year Fielding produced early in 1734 The 
Intriguing Chambermaid, a comedy adapted from Regnard. 
This he followed by Do7i Quixote in England, which he had 
begun while yet at Leyden. The former he wrote for " the 
distressed actors in Drury Lane," who had been deserted by 
the Gibbers. Chiefly to ridicule the latter he also revived 
The Author^s Farce (played with The Intriguing Chamber- 
maid^, and from this time he never ceased to make war on the 
bumptious poet laureate. Early in the year 1735 he produced 
two more plays at Drury Lane, — a farce called The Virgin 
Unmasked and a comedy, The U?iiversal Gallant, The latter 
was an utter failure, and deservedly so. 

To the spring of this year, when Fielding was in his twenty- 
. eighth year, has been assigned his marriage to Miss Charlotte 
Cradock, a beauty of Salisbury, who is considered with some 
show of probability to have been the original of both Sophia 
Western and Amelia. The fact that he had been in love 
with her for some years previous to 1735^ leads one to dis- 
count largely the stories of his wild life in London. From 
the descriptions in Tom Jones and Amelia, along with sufficient 
testimony by less interested parties, we know that Miss Crad- 
ock was a young woman of exceptionally fine character as 
well as beauty. The young couple retired to a small estate at 
East Stour, Dorset, which had perhaps ^ been bequeathed to 
the author by his mother, to come into his possession at mar- 
riage. In any case, the bride brought him ^1500 as dowry, 
with which to establish himself as a gentleman farmer. The 
tales of his wild extravagance during the next few months are to 
some degree corroborated by the confessions of Captain Booth 
in Amelia, which are assumed to be autobiographical. There 
can be no doubt that he kept open house and lived beyond 

1 See the love poems in the Miscellanies of 1743. 

2 According to Murphy he received it at the death of his mother. 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

his means, though the story that he set up a coach with serv- 
ants in yellow liveries has been shown by Sir Leslie Stephen^ 
to be the result of confusion with the notorious Robert Feild- 
ing. Possibly, too, the remorse which he felt in later life for 
his early career may have led him to exaggerate the account 
of his misdoings found in Amelia. Certainly he was never a 
pusillanimous fool like Captain Booth. 

Early in 1736 Fielding returned to London, still possessed 
of sufficient money to rent the so-called French Theatre in 
the Haymarket, which he opened with a group of actors styled 
the " Great Mogul's Company of Comedians." The first play 
which he presented was a burlesque of his own, entitled 
Pasquin : a Dramatick Satire on the Times : being the 
Rehearsal of Two Plays ^ viz., a Comedy calVd the Election, 
a?id a Tragedy calVd the Life and Death of Common Sense. 
This work, which was of the same class as The Rehearsal by 
Buckingham, Sprat, and Butler, had what was for that time an 
extraordinary rim, continuing for " more than forty nights " 
and assuring the success of the company. The profits of the 
play to the author-manager must have been very considerable 
and must for the time have placed him in easy circumstances. 
He followed up his advantage by another dramatic satire 
entitled The Historical Register for the Year iyj6 ; this had 
less vogue than Pasquin but attacked Sir Robert Walpole's 
ministry and political corruption generally with even more 
• severity than did that piece. Troubles now began to collect 
about Fielding's head. The unbounded license of the stage was 
attracting the attention of the government ; and efforts were 
made to restrain it. The history of the affair is obscure, but 
it seems that Giffard, the manager of Goodman's Fields, sold 
to Walpole a scurrilous play called The Golden Rump, portions 

1 See articles Robert Feilding and Henry Fielding, in Dictionary of 

National Biography. 



xviii INTRODUCTION 

of which the minister read in the House of Commons. There is 
no better evidence than Horace Walpole's tittle-tattle^ to show 
that Fielding was in any way concerned with this piece, but 
his name was prominent in the discussion which it aroused. 
The upshot of the whole matter was that a new and very dras- 
tic licensing act received the royal assent on June 21, 1737. 
Meanwhile, early in the year, Fielding had brought out three 
hasty and inconsequential farces, one of which he printed with 
good-natured effrontery, "as it was d-mned at the Theatre- 
Royal in Drury Lane." 

With the passage of the Licensing Act, Fielding's connec- 
tion with the stage ended. He soon retired from the manage- 
ment of his theatre and wrote no more plays, though two early 
works were afterward produced, — The Wedding Day, i743) 
and posthumously The Good- Natured Man, i779- In Novem- 
ber of 1 7 3 7 he entered as a student of the Middle Temple and 
applied himself seriously to the study of law. How he sup- 
ported himself during this period, where his family lived, and 
how he conducted himself, we have little knowledge, though 
a superfluity of gossip. The famous '' wet towel " and '' inked 
ruffles " with which he has been decorated by Thackeray ^ find 
their origin in stories about his life as a templar. At all events, 
he acquired a good knowledge of the law. Doubtless he may 
have done much anonymous writing during these years, and 
in November, 1739, ^^ joined with an able hack writer, James 
Ralph, who attained the dignity of a couplet in The Dunciad, 
in founding a newspaper called the Champion, which was con- 
tinued until the day before he was called to the bar on June 20, 
1740. Fielding's contributions to this journal cannot uniformly 
be identified, and none of them is of much interest except for 
references to enemies like Cibber or friends like Hogarth. 

1 Memoirs of the Last Ten Years of the Reign of George II, I, 12. 

2 English Humourists, and Pendennis, chap. xxix. 



INTRODUCTION xix 

As an advocate Fielding met with little success, though from 
this time to the end of his life he labored unremittingly to main- 
tain his family and mend his fortunes. He joined the western 
circuit and is said to have attended the Wiltshire sessions with 
great regularity. Meanwhile, though he had forsworn period- 
ical writing for the time, he occasionally appeared as an anony- 
mous pamphleteer and poet. In November of 1740, however, 
appeared a work which was to furnish him the opportunity to 
show his great talent in its best vein. This was Richardson's 
Pamela. The mawkish sentimentalism of the novel both 
amused and disgusted Fielding. Perhaps its great vogue may 
also have piqued his robust intellect with something like envy 
of its author, for whom personally he had never anything but 
the profoundest contempt. Accordingly, he proceeded to write 
a parody, but a parody which in the course of its composition 
developed into a masterpiece of narrative art. In February, 
1742, he published The History of the Adventures of Joseph 
And?'ews, and of his Friend Mr. Abraham Adams written in 
imitation of the Manner of Cervantes^ author of Don Qiiixote. 
According to the assignment to the publisher, Andrew Millar, 

which is preserved in the Forster Library at South Kensington, 

« 

he received for the work ;^i83 \\s. 

The book was well received, though its early popularity by 
no means equaled that of Pamela. A second edition was not 
called for till six months had passed. Yet it set all London agog 
and served the very useful purpose, apart from its own merits, 
of showing the author where lay his true field as a writer. 
Perhaps the only man who failed to recognize its merit was 
Richardson himself. I cannot refrain from quoting Mr. Austin 
Dobson's discussion of the matter : 

"With Richardson, as might be expected, it was never 
popular at all, and to a great extent it is possible to sympa- 
thize with his annoyance. The daughter of his brain, whom 



XX INTRODUCTION 

he had piloted through so many troubles, had grown to him 
more real than the daughters of his body, and to see her at 
the height of her fame made contemptible by what in one of 
his letters he terms ' lewd and ungenerous engraftment,' must 
have been a sore trial to his absorbed and self-conscious 
nature, and one which not all the consolations of his con- 
sistory of feminine flatterers — ' my ladies,' as the little man 
called them — could wholly alleviate. But it must be admitted 
that his subsequent attitude was neither judicious nor digni- 
fied. He pursued Fielding henceforth with steady dej^recia- 
tion, caught eagerly at any scandal respecting him, professed 
himself unable to perceive his genius, deplored his ' lowness ' 
and comforted himself by reflecting that, if he pleased at all, 
it was because he had learned the art from Pamela^ ^ 

To all this Fielding made no retort, doubtless feeling that 
he had said all that was necessary and rather more than was 
courteous in the book itself. 

In 1742 were published A Full Vindication of the Duchess 
Dowager of Marlborough^ from Fielding's pen ; the farce Miss 
Lucy in Town, in which he had some part; and a translation 
from Aristophanes entitled Flutus, the God of Fiches, y^hich he 
executed in collaboration with the Reverend William Young, 
who is supposed to have been the original of Parson Adams in 
foseph A?idrews. This last was the first of a series of works 
projected by the translators, which through lack of support 
went no further than one volume. This can scarcely be 
regretted. 

Meanwhile, we know that infirmities had already begim to 
attack Fielding's vigorous frame. In the winter of 1 742-1 743 
he had an attack of gout, and writes of himself^ as being laid 
up "with a favourite Child dying in one Bed, and my Wife in 

1 117. ,2 Preface to Miscellanies. 



INTRODUCTION xxi 

a Condition very little better, on another, attended with other 
Circumstances, which served as very proper Decorations to 
such a Scene," The passage well illustrates the vicissitudes of 
his life, — the reference in the last clause doubtless being to 
bailiffs. Yet he was struggling on in his profession and at the 
same time writing copiously. Some time before the middle of 
1743 were issued three volumes oi Miscellanies by Henry Field- 
ing, Esq. They were published by subscription and accord- 
ing to the estimate of Sir Leslie Stephen ^ must have yielded 
their author about ^^450. The list of subscribers included 
numerous representatives of the aristocracy of birth as well 
as of intellect. Nor were the volumes disappointing. Along 
with a good deal both in verse and prose that was the work 
of his early manhood and somewhat that was simply repub- 
lished, there was included much new and valuable material. 
Of the more important works such as An Essay on Conversa- 
tion^ A Journey from this World to the JVext, and The History 
of the Life of the late Mr. fofiathan Wild the Great, I shall 
have occasion to speak later. These three are of themselves 
sufficient to remove the Miscellanies from mediocrity. 

Towards the end of the same year Fielding's wife died after 
a long illness. That she had remained loyally attached to him 
through the whole of a married life which had brought her 
much trouble and perhaps occasional privation, we cannot 
doubt any more than we can the faithful devotion of her 
somewhat difficult husband. After her death, according to 
Murphy, he was so broken-hearted that his friends feared lest 
he lose his reason. Of the children of this marriage we know 
the name of but one, Eleanor Harriot, who accompanied her 
father on that " voyage to Lisbon " which ended his life. A son 
3,nd one or two daughters seem to have died while very young. 

^ Dictionary of National Biography. 



xxii INTRODUCTION 

During the next two years Fielding must have been engaged 
for the most part in the practice of his profession. In 1744 
he pubHshed nothing except a preface to the second edition 
of his sister's David Simple^ in which he took occasion to 
retract the promise which he had made in the preface to the 
Miscellanies to print nothing thenceforward except over his 
own signature, since in the face of it he had been subjected 
to the scandal of " putting forth anonymous work." This was 
doubtless a reference to a stupid and anonymous satire, the 
Causidicade, which had been attributed to him. In November, 
1745, when the rebellion under the pretender Charles Edward 
broke out, he doubtless was thankful that he had made the 
declaration, for he once again became a journalist, this time 
in defense of the government. For about two years he wrote 
the periodical known as The True Patriot, and for nearly 
another, — till November, 1748, — The Jacobite' s Journal. His 
papers in both of these were largely political and of no lasting 
value, but by means of them he had the opportunity of expressing 
his strong feelings and doubtless of gaining the livelihood which 
for some reason or other he never found at the bar. That 
he was called a " pension'd scribbler " for his pains was only 
natural and not of necessity at all discreditable. 

Meanwhile, on the 27th of November, 1 747,-^ he had married 
Mary Daniel, who had been his first wife's maid. Lady Louisa 
Stuart says of her : " The maid had few personal charms, but 
was an excellent creature, devotedly attached to her mistress, 
and almost broken-hearted for her loss. In the first agonies 
of his own grief, which approached to frenzy, he found no 
relief but from weeping along with her ; nor solace, when a 
degree calmer, but in talking to her of the angel they mutually 
regretted. This made her his habitual confidential associate, 

1 The date was first discovered by Mr. Austin Dobson. See p. 157 
of his biography. 



INTRODUCTION xxiii 

and in process of time he began to think he could not give 
his children a tenderer mother, or secure for himself a more 
faithful housekeeper and nurse. At least this was what he 
told his friends ; and it is certain that her conduct as his 
wife confirmed it, and fully justified his good opinion." To 
this account nothing need be added save that, according to 
Fielding's own statements, particularly in the Voyage to Lis- 
bon, he never found reason to repent his choice. Of this union 
were born four children, — William, who became a barrister and 
magistrate ; Allen, who became a clergyman and who cared for 
his mother in her old age ; ^ and two daughters, one of whom 
died in infancy. 

In December, 1748, through the interest of his lifelong 
friend Lyttelton with the Duke of Bedford, Fielding was 
appointed a justice of the peace for Westminster. He then 
took a house in Bow Street and a little later had the county 
of Middlesex added to his commission. In this office he 
labored very earnestly and to good purpose. Nor, we may 
be sure, did he find his position " humiliating " — to use good 
Sir Walter Scott's phrase with reference to a silly story ^ circu- 
lated by Horace Walpole — so long as he did his work honestly 
and well. To be sure, the magistrates of that time had brought 
themselves into disrepute by their corrupt practices, but so had 
most public officers for that matter. It was not a position of 
great dignity, but it offered a steady income, if not one suf- 
ficient for his lavish nature; and it made him independent 
of friends such as Lyttelton and Allen, who had undoubtedly 
given him much occasional pecuniary assistance hitherto. He 
was assisted in the duties of the office by his half-brother, 

1 She probably died at his house in Canterbury in 1802, 

2 Telling how two young sparks intruded on his private life, were 
treated with scant courtesy, and came away to spread tales of his 
squalid housekeeping. 



xxiv INTRODUCTION 

John Fielding/ who, though bHnd from his birth, had acquired 
a legal education and was a man of parts. 

Apparently for a considerable length of time before his 
appointment as justice Fielding had been engaged in the com- 
position of a new novel. This was The History of Tom Jones, 
a Foundlifig. It was published by Andrew Millar on February 
28, 1749, only two months after the author became a justice. 
The book had an immediate and immense success. So great, 
indeed, was its vogue that the publisher added one hundred 
pounds to the six hundred which he had originally agreed to 
pay. Even Richardson found that his devoted correspondents^ 
were filled with rapt admiration for the masterpiece, though 
he himself continued to heap petty abuse on its author and 
apparently could not find time to read the book. This was 
in contrast to Fielding's reception of Clarissa, which he had 
good-naturedly puffed in the fifth number of The Jacobite^ s 
Journal. Tom Jones was dedicated to Lyttelton in a long 
panegyric which is supportable only because the gratitude 
which the writer expresses is unmistakably genuine. Nor 
could the modest Lyttelton have resented the public way in 
which his virtues were lauded, since thereby his name was 
linked to an acknowledged masterpiece. The verdict of that 
day has never been reversed. The novel has appeared in 
almost innumerable English editions and has been translated 
into most of the European languages. 

In the somewhat limited leisure of his hfe as a justice Field- 
ing now began a new novel, which was to be his last. On the 
19th of December, 1751,- Andrew Millar issued Amelia, though 

1 After Fielding's death his brother succeeded to his office, was 
knighted in 1761, and died in 1780. Unhappily, though he displayed 
remarkable energy, it is not clear that his conduct as magistrate was 
always above reproach. 

2 See letters in Dobson, 189 ff. 



INTRODUCTION XXV 

by anticipation the title-page was dated 1752. For this work 
the publisher paid ^1000, but certainly lost no money by the 
venture since a second edition was called for on the day of 
publication. To admit that this extraordinary demand was 
stimulated by skillful advertising is merely to give due credit 
to the astute Millar. He is said to have refused the ordinary 
discount to his agents on the plea of the enormous demand 
for the work, thereby creating such a demand. The book was 
simply and briefly dedicated to Ralph Allen, Esq., whose regard 
for the author and material assistance to him were gratefully 
remembered. Samuel Johnson was only one of the people of 
discrimination who found the work absorbing. In spite of his 
preference for Richardson, " he read it through without stop- 
ping " ^ and pronounced AmeHa " the most pleasing heroine of 
all the romances." The professional critics, to be sure, treated 
the novel rather harshly, but as usual their adverse comments 
had little influence on its popularity. 

Almost immediately after the publication of Amelia, Fielding 
started a new biweekly paper. The Covent- Garden Journal, in 
which he assumed the title of Sir Alexander Drawcansir, Cen- 
sor of Great Britain. Notwithstanding the increasing burdens 
of his office as magistrate and in spite of obstinate ill health,^ 
he kept continually at work in his laudable endeavor to make 
a comfortable provision for his family against the time when 
he could no longer support them. Indeed, he may have fore- 
seen that he was not destined to a long life. The new journal 
contained much of his best work in this kind of writing, a good 
deal for that matter which was above and outside journalism. 
It was as witty as his earlier ventures and much wiser. Here 
and there one can put his finger on a little essay and say, 

1 Boswell, April 12, 1776. 

2 An attack of "fever aggravated by gout " towards the end of 1749 
for some time seemed likely to prove fatal. 



/ 



xxvi INTRODUCTION 

"That is literature." For Fielding, though only forty-five years 
of age, had become an old man and had acquired the mellow 
wisdom of old age without losing his good spirits or his literary 
skill. In Amelia he already shows this. As Mr. Austin Dobson 
says^ in comparing the book with TomJo7ies : " The robust and 
irresistible vitality, the full-veined delight of living, the energy 
of observation and strength of satire which characterize the 
one give place in the other to a calmer retrospection, a more 
compassionate humanity, a gentler and more benignant criti- 
cism of life." Though in the conduct of The Covent- Garden 
Journal he was involved in several quarrels which he fought 
with customary vigor, his energy was waning. In the last num- 
ber, issued in November, 1752, he took leave of his readers, 
saying with much gravity : " I solemnly declare that, unless in 
revising my former Works, I have at present no Intention to 
hold any further Correspondence with the gayer Muses." 

The fact was that he became increasingly engaged in his 
judicial duties and in publishing treatises on legal cases or 
plans for the promotion of public morality. In May, 1749, he 
was unanimously elected chairman of quarter sessions at Clerk- 
enwell, and in the following month he delivered a very earnest 
and serious charge to the Westminster grand jury, which was 
regarded as a model of exposition. That same year — the 
year of Tom /ones, be it remembered — he published a pam- 
phlet justifying the execution of Bosavern Penlez, a sailor who 
had been convicted of riot and plunder. In January, 1751, he 
distributed An Enquiry into the Causes of the late Increase of 
Robbers^ in which after two years of experience on the bench 
he gravely discussed the prevalent vices of the time and pro- 
posed means of remedying them. He was especially earnest 
in his denunciation of gin drinking ; and his efforts, together 
with his friend Hogarth's terrible engraving of Gin Lafie, were 

1 212. 



INTRODUCTION ' xxvii 

a potent factor in the passage of a " Bill for restricting the 
Sale of Spirituous Liquors," which was enacted in June of that 
year. The Fielding of that day was certainly far removed from 
the thoughtless young playwright of twenty years before, but 
he was no less whole-souled and far more useful. During 1752 
he frequently advertised in The Covent- Garden Journal, request- 
ing that notices of thefts and burglaries be sent him at his house 
in Bow Street. In April of the same year he published a curi- 
ous little treatise entitled Exa7nples of the Interposition of 
Providence, in the Detection aiid Punishment of Murder, which 
he distributed in his court with the evident intention of 
restraining crime. In January, 1753, he published Proposals 
for Making an Effectual Provision for the Poor, — an elaborate 
plan for the care of paupers, which shows careful thought, 
though it came to nothing. He now became involved in the 
case of Elizabeth Canning, a servant who was accused of mur- 
der and finally transported. London was divided into two 
parties by the matter, and Fielding, who believed in the inno- 
cence of the girl, published a pamphlet in her defense. 
Whether or not he was right does not particularly concern us, 
but the fact that he felt it his duty to write the pamphlet is of 
interest in studying his character. During all this time he was 
very active in the discharge of his judicial duties. In spite of 
the state of his health, we learn that in March, 1753, at four 
o'clock in the morning, he made a raid on a house in the 
Strand where he believed that some robbers were concealed. 
As a matter of fact, his health was rapidly becoming worse. 
Against his old enemy, the gout, he fought a losing battle. He 
employed various physicians and a good many quack medicines 
without getting any permanent relief. In 1751^ he had given 
a testimonial to the curative qualities of a spring which had 
been discovered near Glastonbury, but, we may suppose, was 

^ Gentleman'' s Magazine for September of that year. 



xxviii INTRODUCTION 

not long deceived. In the Journal of a Voyage to Lisbo?t he 
himself has given us an account of his life from August, 1753, 
to within a couple of months of his death, which, because of 
its candor and display of kindly fortitude, needs little supple- 
ment or comment. After he " had taken the Duke of Port- 
land's medicine, as it is called, near a year, the effects of 
which had been the carrying off the symptoms of a lingering 
imperfect gout," he was persuaded by his physicians to go 
immediately to Bath. Accordingly, he took lodgings there 
and was about to leave London when he was summoned by 
the Duke of Newcastle to advise with him concerning the sup- 
pression of murder and robbery. Though " fatigued almost to 
death with several long examinations," he put off his journey 
and threw himself into the work with accustomed energy. He 
submitted a plan to the Privy Council, the essential feature of 
which was the employment of an informer. After some delay 
this was approved. His " distemper was now turned to a deep 
jaundice, in which case the Bath waters " were " generally 
reputed to be almost infallible " ; yet so great was his desire 
"of demolishing this gang of villains and cut- throats " that he 
gave up all thought of going to Bath and devoted himself dur- 
ing the following months to the problem. At the expense of 
infinite fatigue and increasing ill health he finally so far suc- 
ceeded that during the dark months of the early winter " not 
only no such thing as a murder, but not even a street-robbery " 
took place in London. Thereupon he went into the country, 
probably to Fordhook, near Ealing, where he had a house. 

Fielding was too honest to attribute his endeavors entirely 
to philanthropy, however, and freely acknowledged that he 
" rejoiced greatly in seeing an opportunity ... of gaining such 
merit in the eye of the public " that if he died, his family 
might be provided for through gratitude. Indeed, his private 
affairs were involved, and he had begun to despair of leaving 



INTRODUCTION xxix 

them a competency, in spite of the returns of his later works 
and a pension from the government. Through his unwilling- 
ness to conform to the ordinary habits of contemporary jus- 
tices, he had " reduced an income of about five hundred 
pounds a-year of the dirtiest money upon earth to little more 
than three hundred pounds." To a less extravagant and gen- 
erous man his total earnings might have seemed ample, but 
they scarcely enabled him to live in comfort. 

Meanwhile his gout and asthma, now combined with dropsy, 
were becoming more desperate. In February, 1754, he returned 
to town, where he was saved from immediate death by Dr. 
Ward, a quack of some skill. When spring finally came, after 
an unusually severe winter, he went back to Fordhook, where 
a reperusal of Bishop Berkeley's Siris induced him to try the 
famous tar water. This gave him some relief, but it was evi- 
dent that he must seek a warmer climate. Accordingly, after 
some discussion, he finally set sail on June 26 for Lisbon, 
accompanied by his wife and eldest daughter. At this point 
begins the wonderful record of his last voyage, which he wrote 
day by day to relieve the tedium of his idle hours. Mr. Austin 
Dobson rightly calls ^ it " one of the most unfeigned and touch- 
ing little tracts in our own or any other literature." He knew 
that he was dying, yet he endured the delays and fatigues of 
the embarkation and the positive discomforts of the voyage 
with the greatest kindliness and good spirits. He laughs at 
the wonder of the captain, who could not understand his for- 
titude under the operation of tapping for dropsy, " that is 
attended with scarce any degree of pain." He is tenderly 
concerned for Mrs. Fielding's toothache. He draws with his 
inimitable hand the portrait of a disobliging landlady at Ryde 
and describes with gusto " the pleasantest and the merriest 
meal" in a barn at the same place. He discourses on the 

I236. 



XXX INTRODUCTION 

fish supply of London and the extortions of boatmen. 
Throughout he fills the pages with wisdom, pathos, and mel- 
low wit. He arrived at Lisbon on August 13 and closed his 
record with these words : 

" Here we regaled ourselves with a good supper for which 
we were as well charged as if the bill had been made on the 
Bath-road between Newbury and London. 

" And now we could joyfully say, 

Egressi optata Troes potiutiUir arena. 
Therefore, in the words of Horace, 

— hie Finis chartaeque viaeque." 

Such it proved to be, for Henry Fielding died at Lisbon on 
October 8, 1754, and was buried in the English cemet-ery. 

In judging the character of Fielding the man, if judge him 
we must, it is necessary to guard carefully against exaggera- 
tion. A man who lived so much in the space of forty-six years 
is peculiarly liable to misinterpretation, because now this side 
and now that of his vigorous personality is lighted up. Thack- 
eray's portrait of him is worth quoting as being drawn by his 
most famous disciple and as embodying the traditional view : 

" I cannot offer or hope to make a hero of Harry Fielding. 
Why hide his faults? Why conceal his weaknesses in a cloud 
of periphrases? Why not show, like him as he is, not robed in 
a marble toga, and draped and polished in an heroic attitude, 
but with inked ruffles, and claret-stains on his tarnished laced 
coat, and on his manly face the marks of good-fellowship, 
of illness, of kindness, of care, and wine. Stained as you see 
him, and worn by care and dissipation, that man retains some 
of the most precious and splendid human qualities and endow- 
ments. He has an admirable natural love of truth, the keen- 
est instinctive antipathy to hypocrisy, the happiest satirical 



INTRODUCTION xxxi 

gift of laughing it to scorn. His wit is wonderfully wise and 
detective ; it flashes upon a rogue and lightens up a rascal 
like a policeman's lantern. He is one of the manliest and 
kindliest of human beings : in the midst of all his imperfections, 
he respects female innocence and infantine tenderness, as you 
would suppose such a great-hearted, courageous soul would 
respect and care for them. He could not be so brave, gener- 
ous, truth-telling as he is, were he not infinitely merciful, 
pitiful, and tender. He will give any man his purse — he can't 
help kindness and profusion. He may have low tastes, but 
not a mean mind ; he admires with all his heart good and 
virtuous men, stoops to no flattery, bears no rancour, disdains 
all disloyal arts, does his public duty uprightly, is fondly loved 
by his family, and dies at his work." ^ 

But is not the man who repents his disordered youth and 
toils earnestly to support his family by means of a laborious 
profession, who writes great novels and wise essays, and who 
in the face of physical decay gives himself heart and soul to 
the suppression of vice and the care of the poor, is not such 
a man, after all, something of a hero? At his worst he was 
never so bad as he has been pictured. In his vice he was 
never mean, and his hatred of hypocrisy is as manifest in his 
early satires as in his great novels. He never was prudent, it 
is true, and he learned wisdom in a bitter school. Yet he had 
all the larger virtues. He loved his family, was loyal to his 
friends and generous to his enemies, was fond of little children, 
and did his work manfully. To be sure, he would have laughed 
merrily at any characterization of himself as a hero, but what 
real hero would not ? As Mr. Austin Dobson says : ^ 

" If any portrait of him is to be handed down to posterity, 
let it be the last rather than the first — not the Fielding of 
the green-room and the tavern, of Covent Garden frolics and 

'^English Humourists. 2 260, 261. 



xxxii INTRODUCTION 

' Modern conversations ' ; but the energetic magistrate, the 
tender husband and father, the kindly host of his poorer 
friends, the practical philanthropist, the patient and magnani- 
mous hero of the Voyage to Lisbon.''' 

In person he was more than six feet in height, and excep- 
tionally robust. In the Cha?npio?i he refers to himself play- 
fully as a " tall man " who refuses to part with " half his chin " 
at the request of Mercury. This is an allusion to his length 
of nose and chin, which were unusually pronounced, as is evi- 
dent from the only authentic portrait which we have of him, 
a sketch made by his lifelong friend Hogarth, from memory, 
when a frontispiece was wanted for his collected works. This 
represents him at a time when he had lost his teeth and was 
in every way altered from the handsome youth who came to 
London in 1728. Yet the face of the picture is a striking one, 
with the fine forehead and rather deep-set eyes, the strong 
lines of the nose and jaw, and the faintly ironical curl of the 
short upper lip — the face of a man who, to quote the motto 
of Tom /ones, " saw the manners of many men." ^ 

II 

FIELDING'S WORKS 

The dates and subjects of Fielding's works have been men- 
tioned briefly in the account of his life. It is necessary, how- 
ever, to consider the more important ones in greater detail, 
to describe their contents, and to show how and where the 
author succeeded in reaching an achievement worthy of his 
powers. The fact that until he was thirty years of age he was 
known entirely as a poet and dramatist makes it natural to 
discuss first his efforts in these two directions. 

1 Horace, Ars Poetica, v, 142. 



INTRODUCTION xxxiii 

POEMS AND PLAYS 

Though they were not pubHshed in collected form, and, 
indeed, though many of them never saw the light at all till 
the appearance of the three-volume Miscellanies in 1743, 
Fielding's poems were almost all the work of his early man- 
hood. They are chiefly interesting from the fact of their 
authorship, possessing of themselves little intrinsic worth. 
Though sometimes graceful and almost always vivacious, they 
are of their time, the work of a young man who wrote verse 
in the prevailing style for the same reason, generally obscure, 
that causes most young men of literary tendency to turn poets 
for a little. He himself characterizes ^ the verses which he 
chose to print as "Productions of the Heart rather than of 
the Head." That being so, it is scarcely worth our while to 
examine them very closely or criticise them very severely. 
In his prologues and the occasional verses found in his plays 
he is happier, though this success was perhaps due rather to 
high spirits than to poetic inspiration. It was seldom that he 
compassed such a line as that which begins the hunting song 
in Don Quixote in England : 

The dusky night rode down the sky. 

With his plays the case is far different. All of them were 
hasty productions, to be sure, and some were as ephemeral 
as the work of the sorriest playwrights of the time ; yet a few 
deserve reading for their own sake, and several cannot properly 
be neglected in any adequate account of Fielding's career. 
They are all satires, whether comedies, farces, or burlesques, 
for young Harry Fielding was not less alive to the follies of 
his kind — to say nothing of himself — than was the creator 
of Jonathan Wild and the despicable Captain Booth. These 

1 Preface to Miscellanies. 



xxxiv INTRODUCTION 

plays, it must be remembered, were the work of his early 
manhood, — of a time when he had neither found his proper 
field of work nor taken up the reins of self-government. 
They are full of high spirits, of slashing criticism, of broad 
humor, and of rollicking parody. They are marred by a hun- 
dred defects of carelessness, coarseness, and bad taste. Yet 
at their best — and their best is in burlesque — they are very 
good indeed. According to their kind and in the way of 
their kind, To7n Thumb and Pasquin have scarcely been 
excelled. 

Fielding's first two plays, Love in Several Masques (1728) 
and The Temple Beau (1730), are nothing more than imita- 
tions of Van Brugh and Congreve, — pale reflections of that 
" comedy of manners " which was only excellent when pol- 
ished of phrase and delicate of wit. Indeed, they bear more 
resemblance to the " wit- traps " of the laureate Colley Gibber 
than to The Way of the World. They show surprisingly little 
observation of life, even though one remembers that the author 
was not much past his majority. 

The two plays next produced, however, evidence a decided 
advance in every way. These were The Author^ s Farce and 
The Pleasures of the Town (March, 1730), which together 
made up the bill at the Haymarket Theatre. The latter is 
described as a "puppet-show," — apt name for a clever farce 
which portrays and satirizes the pantomime makers and nos- 
trum venders of the metropolis. The former piece, however, 
was the better and in its revised form will be described below. 
Similar in general character to these farces was The Coffee- 
House Politician^ which appeared in the same year. As in 
most such pieces the whole interest of the reader — if not of 
the spectator — is absorbed by one figure, the tradesman who 
busies himself with matters that are too weighty for him, with 
ludicrous results. 



INTRODUCTION xxxv 

It is a clear indication of the rapidity with which Fielding 
could turn out these satirical dramatic sketches — for the 
pieces above named are little more — that he was able in the 
same year to produce a play which was at once even less seri- 
ous than they and yet his most important contribution to 
drama. I refer, of course, to Tom Thumb the Great. Its 
merit was at once recognized, indeed, and in the following 
year an altered form appeared. After having a successful run, 
this was published, with an admirable preface and notes by 
" H. Scriblerus Secundus," one of those delightful pedants 
whom authors have been creating as foils to their own imagi- 
nations from the seventeenth century down to Scott and 
Lowell. If the writers of mock-heroic tragedy were well 
ridiculed in the text, the scholars of the day were as well 
laughed at in the annotations. In the preface, in praise of the 
" tragedy," he says : " It hath, among other languages, been 
translated into Dutch, and celebrated with great applause 
at Amsterdam (where burlesque never came) by the title of 
Mynheer Vander Thumb, the burgomasters receiving it with 
that reverent and silent attention which becometh an audience 
at a deep tragedy." Or witness his erudite remarks on the 
final scene, where all the important characters are successively 
killed : " No scene, I believe, ever received greater honours 
than this. It was applauded by several encores, a word very 
unusual in tragedy. And it was very difficult for the actors to 
escape without a second slaughter. This I take to be a lively 
assurance of that fine spirit of liberty which remains among 
us, and which Mr. Dryden, in his essay on Dramatick Poetry,^ 
hath observed : ' Whether custom,' says he, ' hath so formed 
them to fierceness, I know not ; but they will scarcely suifer 
combats and other objects of horror to be taken from them.' 

1 Of Dramatick Poesie, An Essay, 1668. Fielding's quotation is not 
altogether accurate, but it gives the sense of the passage. 



xxxvi INTRODUCTION 

And indeed I am for having them encouraged in this martial 
disposition ; nor do I beUeve our victories over the French 
have been owing to anything more than to those bloody spec- 
tacles daily exhibited in our tragedies, of which the French 
stage is so intirely clear." 

Yet the notes are but the sauce to the feast. For three acts 
of the most turgid blank verse, Tom Thumb, Lord Grizzle, 
the princess Huncamunca, and other fantastic creatures rage 
and rant in a fashion not very unlike that of the tragedies 
which the audiences of those days somehow found supportable. 
Their utterances, indeed, are for the most part excellent paro- 
dies of speeches found in the plays of Dryden, Lee, Otway, 
Rowe, " Jemmy " Thomson, and lesser lights of drama. The pas- 
sages copied from these authors, or, as he puts it, the matter 
imitated by them from Tom Thumbs are carefully indicated by 
the excellent Scriblerus Secundus. So Grizzle cries out, 

Oh! Huncamunca, Huncamunca, oh ! 

and we have the note : " This beautiful line, which ought, 

says Mr. W ^ to be written in gold, is imitated in the 

Neiv Sophonisba : ^ 

Oh ! Sophonisba ; Sophonisba, oh ! " 

So the giantess Huncamunca exclaims of the valiant dwarf, 
her lover : 

Oh Tom Thumb! Tom Thumb! wherefore art thou Tom Thumb? 

a parody of Otway 's 

Oh ! Marius, Marius, wherefore art thou Marius ? 

It is interesting to note that, in spite of the fact that he was 
a lover of Shakespeare, Fielding apparently did not recognize 
that this verse, like most of Man'us, was nothing but a solemn 
travesty of Romeo and Juliet. 

1 For Warburton. 2 j^y Thomson. 



INTRODUCTION xxxvii 

One other example, which is a burlesque of the now for- 
gotten " heroic " style rather than of the particular absurdity 
of any one passage, must suffice to illustrate the play. In Act 
III a ghost appears to King Arthur and among other deliver- 
ances remarks : 

Thy subjects up in arms, by Grizzle led, 
Will, ere the rosy-finger'd morn shall ope 
The shutters of the sky, before the gate 
Of this thy royal palace, swarming spread. 
So have I seen the bees in clusters swarm, 
So have I seen the stars in frosty nights, 
So have I seen the sand in windy days, 
So have I seen the ghosts on Pluto's shore. 
So have I seen the flowers in spring arise. 
So have I seen the leaves in autumn fall, 
So have I seen the fruits in summer smile, 
So have I seen the snow in winter frown. 

AH in all, Tom Thumb has seldom been equaled in its way. 
It is certainly one of the best pieces of dramatic satire in 
English or, perhaps, in any language. It stands between The 
Rehearsal and Sheridan's Critic in point of time and is sur- 
passed by neither in unfailing flow of spirits and what Fielding 
himself in another connection^ called "surprizing absurdity." 
Such burlesque can perhaps best be written by young men, and 
the youthfulness of it adds to its charm. It is not the finest 
form of satire, it lays a somewhat heavy hand on its victims, it 
is botlt boisterous and obvious ; but what man with any sense 
of humor can resist its wholesome current of fun? 

Of Fielding's plays which appeared in 1732 and 1733,^ only 
two need detain us, since all the others are quite unworthy of 
their author as well as objectionable according to any standard 

1 See remarks on burlesque in preface Vo Joseph Andrews, No. IV of 
this volume. 2 gee p. xiv. 



xxxviii INTRODUCTION 

of morality and art. The two exceptions are .the adaptations 
from Moliere, — The Mock- Doctor and The Miser. In the former 
he followed Le Medeciti malgre liii fairly closely, though he 
added much to the dialogue as well as to the complications 
of the plot and changed the conclusion in order to avoid the 
romantic climax of the original. His rendering is spirited in 
every part, though it scarcely need be said that he lacks the 
delicate brilliancy of Moliere's style. Yet the play well 
deserved the enthusiastic reception which it obtained ; nor 
was The Miser a less successful adaptation. Here again Field- 
ing caught the spirit of the French comedy and transferred it 
with little loss to the English stage. He was not a translator 
simply, but presented anew the clearly defined characters of 
the original, perhaps with the more ease because they were 
not of one nation nor of one time, but drawn broadly and 
without superfluous strokes. It is an interesting commentary 
on Fielding's career as a playwright that he never succeeded 
in writing regular comedy of any value except in these adapta- 
tions. He appreciated what was good in his predecessors but 
could not, or did not, fashion his original work on the same 
sound principles. Perhaps his immaturity prevented, perhaps 
the hasty composition to which his necessities drove him. Yet 
we cannot sincerely regret that he gave up the attempt to 
write comedy when he did, since in his novels he turned his 
ripened powers to a use as good. 

The Author^ s Farce, which was revived in 1734 in the same 
bill as The Ifitrigiiing Chambe?'maid, — itself a lively adaptation 
from Regnard, made for Mrs. Clive, — is far and away the best 
of Fielding's efforts in this sort. Even now, when the personal 
satire which it contains has lost its point, it furnishes the 
reader with excellent entertainment. To some extent the 
farce is probably autobiographical, — the account of the adven- 
tures of a young author. Luckless, with two bailiffs, two 



INTRODUCTION xxxix 

managers, a publisher, and his landlady. At least. Fielding 
undoubtedly had experiences which furnished him with mate- 
rial for it. The gay young writer in 'Oaced clothes" who 
found friends more easily than money to pay his landlady, 
who was hounded by bailiffs, and who had to do with purvey- 
ors of machine-made literature, has all the superficial charac- 
teristics of the author himself. Marplay senior and his foppish 
son are copies of the two Gibbers, with whom for one reason 
or another Fielding was continually at war. Unjust though the 
sketches be, they are sufficiently amusing even now. 

Marplay sen. Ha, ha, ha! 

Mar.jun. What do you think of the play? 

Mar. sen. It may be a very good one, for aught I know : but 
I am resolved, since the town will not receive any of mine, they 
shall have none from any other. I'll keep them to their old diet. 

Mar. jiin. But suppose they won't feed on 't ? 

Mar. sen. Then it shall be crammed down their throats. 

Mar.juti. I wish, father, you would leave me that art for a 
legacy, since I am afraid I am like to have no other from you. 

Mar. se7i. 'T is buff, child, 'tis buff — true Corinthian brass ; 
and, heaven be praised, tho' I have given thee no gold, I have 
given thee enough of that, which- is the better inheritance of the 
two. Gold thou might'st have spent, but this is a lasting estate 
that will stick by thee all thy life. 

Mar. jun. What shall be done with that farce which was 
damned last night? 

Mar. sen. Give it them again to-morrow. I have told some 
persons of quality that it is a good thing, and I am resolved not 
to be in the wrong : let us see which will be weary first, the town 
of damning, or we of being damned. 

Mar. jun. Rat the town, I say. 

Mar. sen. That 's a good boy ; and so say I : but, prithee, 
what didst thou do with the comedy which I gave thee t' other 
day, that I thought a good one ? 



xl INTRODUCTION 

Mar. jiin. Did as you ordered me ; returned it to the author, 
and told him it would not do. 

Mar. sen. You did well. If thou writest thyself, and that I 
know thou art very well qualified to do, it is thy interest to keep 
back all other authors of any merit, and be as forward to advance 
those of none. 

Mar. jun. But I am a little afraid of writing ; for my writings, 
you know, have fared but ill hitherto. 

Mar. sen. That is because thou liast a little mistaken the 
method of writing. The art of writing, boy, is the art of stealing 
old plays, by changing the name of the play, and new ones, by 
changing the name of the author. 

Mar. jun. If it was not for these cursed hisses and catcalls — 

Mar. sen. Harmless musick, child, very harmless musick, and 
what, when one is but well seasoned to it, has no effect at all : for 
my part, I have been used to them. 

Mar. jun. Ay, and I have been used to them too, for that 
matter. 

Mar. sen. And stood them bravely too. Idle young actors are 
fond of applause, but, take my word for it, a clap is a mighty 
silly, empty thing, and does no more good than a hiss ; and there- 
fore, if any man loves hissing, he may have his three shillings 
worth at me whenever he pleases. 

Exeunt} 

The scenes in which Bookweight, the bookseller, appears 
are equally lively. He is a capital caricature of the unlettered 
and purely commercial publisher. With great good humor he 
is shown in his circle of hack writers, — Index, Scarecrow, Blot- 
page, and the rest, ^ whom he employs at starvation wages in 
his own shop, giving them as he says " good milk porridge, 
very often twice a day, which is good wholesome food and 
proper for students." His interview with Scarecrow illustrates 
his method excellently. 

^ Act II, sc. ii. 



INTRODUCTION xli 

Scarecrow. Sir, I have brought you a libel against the min- 
istry. 

Bookweight. Sir, I shall not take anything against them; — 
for I have two in the press already. Aside. 

Scare. Then, sir, I have an Apology in defence of them. 

Book. That I shall not meddle with neither ; they don't sell so 
well. 

Scare. I have a translation of Virgil's ^neid, with notes on it, 
if we can agree about the price. 
^ Book. Why, what price would you have ? 

Scare. You shall read it first, otherwise how will you know the 
value ? 

Book. No, no, sir, I never deal that way — a poem is a poem, 
and a pamphlet a pamphlet with me. Give me a good handsome 
large volume, with a full promising title-page at the head of it, 
printed on a good paper and letter, the whole bound and gilt, and 
I'll warrant its selling. You have the common error of authors, 
who think people buy books to read. No, no, books are only 
bought to furnish libraries, as pictures and glasses, and beds and 
chairs, are for other rooms. Look ye, sir, I don't like your title- 
page : however, to oblige a young beginner, I don't care if I do 
print it at ray own expence. 

Scare. But pray, sir, at whose expence shall I eat? 

Book. At whose? Why, at mine, sir, at mine. I am as great 
a friend to learning as the Dutch are to trade : no one can want 
bread with me who will earn it ; therefore, sir, if you please to 
take your seat at my table, here will be everything necessary 
provided for you : good milk porridge, very often twice a day, 
which is good wholesome food and proper for students ; a trans- 
lator too is what I want at present, my last being in Newgate for 
shop-lifting". The rogue had a trick of translating out of the shops 
as well as the languages. 

Scare. But I am afraid I am not qualified for a translator, for 
I understand no language but my own. 

Book. What, and translate Virgil ? 

Scare. Alas ! I translated him out of Dryden. 



xlii INTRODUCTION 

Book. Lay by your hat, sir — lay by your hat, and take your 
seat immediately. Not qualified! — thou art as well versed in thy 
trade as if thou hadst laboured in my garret these ten years. Let 
me tell you, friend, you will have more occasion for invention than 
learning here. You will be obliged to translate books out of all 
languages, especially French, that were never printed in any lan- 
guage whatsoever. 

Scare. Your trade abounds in mysteries. 

Book. The study of bookselling is as difficult as the law : and 
there are as many tricks in the one as the other. Sometimes we 
give a foreign name to our own labours, and sometimes we put 
our names to the labours of others. Then, as the lawyers have 
John-a-Nokes and Tom-a-Stiles, so we have Messieurs Moore 
near St. Paul's and Smith near the Royal Exchange.^ 

Perhaps the best thing in the farce, however, is the portrait 
of Mrs. Money wood, the landlady, who is nearly related to 
Mrs. Tow-wouse of Joseph Andrezvs and the keeper of the inn 
on the Bristol road in To7ii Jones. Her regard for a laced 
coat and still more for a full purse, her irascible sordidness, 
and her frank animalism are depicted with the sure touch 
which was to distinguish the author's later efforts in the field 
of contemporary manners. Here again Fielding showed his 
capability of doing really sterling work within the limits of 
ordinary human nature. 

The only other plays by Fielding that need detain us are 
Don Quixote in England (1734), Pasquin (1736), and The 
Historical Register Jor the Year 1736. The first of these was 
an early work, which he furbished up to help out the " dis- 
tressed actors in Drury Lane " but finally produced at the 
Haymarket. It is chiefly interesting because it shows that 
Cervantes' masterpiece was already known to him and loved 
as genuinely as in later days when he owned his indebtedness 

1 Act II, sc. v. 



INTRODUCTION xliii 

to it in the formation of his narrative style. The farce itself 
possesses few dramatic qualities. The adventures, save the 
election scenes, are closely modeled on those in Don Quixote^ 
and the characters, with the exception of Squire Badger, whom 
Mr. Austin Dobson calls -^ " a rudimentary Squire Western," 
are either adaptations or lay figures. 2'he Histoj'ical Register 
also has only fortuitous interest, partly as the successor of 
Pasquin, partly from the consequences which the vigorous 
political satire of the piece brought upon Fielding.^ 

Pasquin itself is of more consequence and ranks with The 
Author's Farce and Tom Thiwib as the most important of 
Fielding's dramatic works. Like To7n Thumb it is written in 
the manner of The Rehearsal, though it burlesques politicians 
as broadly as it does authors. The scheme of the play is 
as follows. Trapwit and Fustian undertake the preliminary ' 
rehearsals of their plays, respectively a comedy called The 
Election and a tragedy called The Life and Death of Common 
Sense, on the stage of the same theatre. The comedy occupies 
three acts and the tragedy two. The former describes a con- 
tested election in the country with much boldness and shows 
little consideration for either party, since though the candi- 
dates of the " country party " bribe more openly, those of the 
" court party" do so with better effect. The remarks of Trap- 
wit and Fustian furnish a witty byplay and indicate that Field- 
ing was well aware of his contemporaries' weakness in drama, 
if not of his own. With the conclusion of The Election begins 
* the rehearsal of the tragedy, which details the strife between 
Queen Common Sense and Queen Ignorance, with the ulti- 
mate destruction of the former. As Fustian himself says : ^ " I 
believe I may defy all the poets who have ever writ, or ever 
will write, to produce its equal : it is, sir, so crammed with 
drums and trumpets, thunder and hghtning, battles and ghosts, 

1 47. 2 See p. xvii. ^ Act V, sc. i. 



xliv INTRODUCTION 

that I believe the audience will want no entertainment after 
it : it is as full of shew as Merlin's cave itself ; and for wit — 
no rope-dancing or tumbling can come near it." The bur- 
lesque is not so purely literary as that of Tom Thumbs less 
boisterous indeed, but more pungent and more concerned 
with the faults of contemporary life. The dying soliloquy of 
Common Sense in the last scene, and the subsequent remarks 
of her slayer Firebrand, may serve to illustrate the play. 

Queen Coi7inioji Sense. 

Oh, traytor ! thou hast murder'd Common Sense. 

Fairwel, vain world ! to Ignorance I give thee. 

Her leaden sceptre shall henceforward rule. 

Now, priest, indulge thy wild ambitious thoughts; 

Men shall embrace thy schemes, till thou hast drawn 

All worship from the Sun upon thyself : 

Henceforth all things shall topsy-turvy turn ; 

Physick shall kill, and Law enslave the world; 

Cits shall turn beaus, and taste Italian songs, 

While courtiers are stock-jobbing in the city. 

Places requiring learning and great parts 

Henceforth shall all be hustled in a hat, 

And drawn by men deficient in them both. 

Statesmen — but oh ! cold death will let me say 

No more — and you must guess et ccetera. Dies. 

Firebra7td. 

She 's gone ! but ha ! it may beseem me ill 

T' appear her murderer. I '11 therefore lay 

This dagger by her side ; and that will be 

Sufficient evidence, with a little money. 

To make the coroner's inquest find self-murder. 

I '11 preach her funeral sermon, and deplore 

Her loss with tears, praise her with all my art. 

Good Ignorance will still believe it all. Exit. 



INTRODUCTION xlv 

NOVELS 

One is tempted to say that it was characteristic of Henry 
Fielding that he should have come into his literary heritage 
almost by chance. Whatever his merit as a writer of burlesque 
and of essays, it is first, last, and always as a noveUst that 
he chiefly merits our honor. Yet his choice of the narrative 
form was not at all deliberate. When he began to write Joseph 
Andrews he certainly intended to produce nothing more than a 
parody of Richardson's Pamela^ and though by the irresistible 
impulse of his genius he was carried far beyond the bounds 
of his original design, he never quite forgot his purpose. In 
the course of its composition he discovered the kingdom which 
he was to rule and announced as much in beginning Tom 
Jones} That was all. 

We can, I think, understand the attitude which he took 
toward Richardson's work if we remember the characters of 
the two men and the adulation with which Pamela was greeted. 
Samuel Richardson, excellent man, was little in many qualities 
of mind as well as in body. He lived a placid, rather humdrum 
life, attentive to his business as bookseller, gifted with marvel- 
ous powers of minute observation, finicky in private matters as 
in prose style, and compact of sensibility, to use the old phrase. 
Henry Fielding was his opposite in almost every particular. 
He was cast in a larger mold, was a man to give and to take 
hard knocks without flinching. He had seen at thirty-three 
years a good many ways of life, and within the bounds which 
he never tried to cross he knew human nature as thoroughly 
as man ever does. He was impatient of the restraints of his 
life, but thoroughly in love with life itself and the good mate- 
rial world. From his nature and training alike he was not very 
sensitive about the niceties of morals, though he had a fine 

1 See Book II, chap, i, No. V of this volume. 



xlvi INTRODUCTION 

contempt for what was mean and, in spite of his early wrong- 
doing, for what was morally bad. He was tender without being 
sentimental, generous to a fault, brave to rashness, and as full 
of high spirits and humor as Richardson was deficient in those 
qualities. 

On the publication of Pamela in November, 1740, he proba- 
bly read the book, as did everybody else, — dukes and duchesses, 
maids and footmen. He heard the author praised as one of 
the great men of Europe, undoubtedly he heard of the compla- 
cency with which the little bookseller received the homage of 
devoted females, and he certainly was aware of his full-blown 
conceit. He must have been amused by all this, as well as 
somewhat disgusted. He appreciated the merits of Richard- 
son's work, it is to be hoped, — his elaborate analysis of 
motives and his careful art; but he was moved to Jovian 
laughter by the mawkishness of it all, its conventionality and 
its essential untruthfulness. 

So he conceived the idea of burlesquing Pamela as he had 
burlesqued degenerate tragedy. Though it cannot be believed 
that he felt the essential immorality of the novel as a man of 
more delicate constitution would have done, he struck at the 
heart of it by taking Pamela's brother as his hero and sub- 
jecting him to temptations similar to those which assailed the 
heroine of his model. Just when and how he made this plan 
we neither know nor greatly care. We can be reasonably sure 
that he went through with some such mental process, and we 
know thatin February, 1 742, The Adventures of Joseph Andrews, 
and of his Friend Mr. Abraham Adams was given to the 
world. In the course of the writing, to his great honor and to 
the eternal profit of English readers, he had far overstepped 
the limits of his original design, though I think that we should 
be wrong in saying that he ever abandoned it. Instead of com- 
posing a burlesque, as he intended, he made a novel, the first 



INTRODUCTION xlvii 

novel of its kind, and some would say of any kind, in English. 
While he was ridiculing Richardson he was unable to resist the 
creator's impulse to clothe his puppets in flesh and blood and 
to breathe life into them. He must have done this knowingly, 
since he appended to the title of the published work, ^'written 
in the manner of Cervantes, author of Don Quixote," and in 
the author's preface expressly declared that he had written not 
burlesque but "comic romance." 

Indeed, Joseph Andrews is much greater than its ostensible 
purpose and much more than a tentative venture into a new 
field of fiction. Though it has the faults natural to its method 
of composition, it is a masterly novel. The plot, to be sure, is 
simple. Joseph, a handsome young footman in the service of 
Lady Booby, incurs the displeasure of his mistress and her 
maid by resisting their advances. He sets out for the country, 
is robbed and beaten by highwaymen on the road, and at the 
inn whither he is taken, meets Mr. Adams, the curate of his 
parish, who after Joseph's recovery starts homeward in his 
company. ' Before their arrival they meet Fanny, Joseph's 
sweetheart, who had set out to relieve her lover on hearing 
of his misfortune. After encountering a good many adventures 
by the way, they arrive at their destination just as Lady Booby 
returns to Booby Hall. Thither comes Squire Booby with his 
bride, who is the supposed sister of Joseph. In a series of rapidly 
shifting scenes, however, it is discovered that in reality Fanny 
and Pamela are sisters, while Joseph is the son of Mr. Wilson, 
a gentleman whom Parson Adams had met on the road. Joseph 
and Fanny are married and settle on an estate near his 
father's, while Lady Booby consoles herself with the society 
of London. 

Such is the bald outline of the novel, but the summary gives 
no notion whatever of its qualities. The reader is interested in 
the plot only in so far as it serves to illustrate the characters, 



Iviii INTRODUCTION 



and he is grateful to the author for subordinating it. For here 
are men and women of several stations in life, each of whom 
has a well-marked individuality and each of whom lives in the 
memory as do persons whom one has met and known. They 
move and sj^eak in such fashion that we cannot doubt their 
existence, but feel only gratitude that their personalities are 
shown by the masterly hand of their discoverer. They are real- 
istically portrayed, to speak the language of criticism, but with 
such care in selection that the average reader understands 
them better than he does his own acquaintance. The hand of 
the artist is everywhere present but nowhere obtrusive. This, 
I take it, represents the highest triumph of the novelist's art as 
distinguished from the dramatist's, — the subjective presenta- 
tion of living men and women. 

The judgment of more than five generations has sustained 
the favorable verdict with which Joseph Andrews was received. 
The poet Gray, who did not like the book as a whole, wrote to 
his correspondent West, " Parson Adams is perfectly well ; so is 
Mrs. Slipslop, and the story of Wilson." Every one must agree 
with this, though most of us would add to the list of characters 
who are '* perfectly well." The portrait of Adams is certainly 
the best thing in the book, ancj his name was very properly 
coupled with that of Joseph Andrews in the title. Whether or 
not Fielding copied him, with differences, from his friend, the 
Reverend William Young, he succeeded in creating what Mr. 
Dobson calls " a noble example of primitive goodness and 
practical Christianity." Adams is submitted to almost as many 
hard knocks as Don Quixote himself, but he retains his native 
dignity through everything. Full of queer contradictions, hav- 
ing the knowledge of a scholar with the simplicity of a child, 
forgetful of the most ordinary matters but keeping constantly 
in mind his honest purposes, the man is never laughable though 
his actions seldom fail to raise a smile. He wields his crab-tree 



INTRODUCTION xlix 

cudgel with the heartiest vigor, but he shows a higher kind of 
courage in combating Lady Booby at the risk of his twenty- 
three pounds per annum. 

Joseph himself, in spite of the disabilities under which he 
labors as the counterpart of Pamela, is an interesting young 
man. As for that lady, though she plays only a small part in 
the story, she is as fully alive as in Richardson and does not 
suffer from the touch of satire with which she is treated, as 
when, for example, she comments on Joseph's sweetheart and 
her own position. " She was my equal, answered Pamela; but 
I am no longer Pamela Andrews ; I am now this gentleman's 
lady, and, as such, above her. — I hope I shall never behave 
with an unbecoming pride : but, at the same time, I shall always 
endeavour to know myself, and question not the assistance of 
grace to that purpose." As for the rest, — the reformed Mr. 
Wilson, the clerical farmer Trulliber, Mrs. Slipslop, the landlady 
Mrs. Tow-wouse and her maid Betty, Mr. Adams, and Lady 
Booby, — he who knows them cannot fail to pay their creator 
the tribute of gratitude. 

Nor is the book destitute of other merits. Throughout there 
is a constant flow of high spirits and rich humor. When we 
remember that it was written, as Fielding himself says, while 
his wife and child whom he tenderly loved were both danger- 
ously ill and his affairs were in a desperate state, we realize 
somewhat the indomitable courage of the man and his natu- 
ral fund of cheerfulness. Not a trace of care appears in the 
novel, though the author's personality is impressed on every 
page. The work is not perfect truly, — little can be said for 
the intrusive episodes of The Unfortunate Jilt and the long 
story of Wilson ; but it shows in an excellent light the qualities 
of the first great English novelist, — his marvelous power of 
depicting men and women and his no less marvelous command 
of English prose. 



1 INTRODUCTION 

Fielding's next^ efforts in fiction were less ambitious, and, 
on the whole, less successful than Joseph Andrews. They were 
the Journey from this World to the Next and the History of the 
Life of the late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great^ which appeared 
in the Miscellanies of 1743. The former is a fragment, perhaps 
designedly so, but more probably a work which grew wearisome 
to the author. The introduction begins : " Whether the ensu- 
ing pages were really the dream of some very pious and holy 
person ; or whether they were really written in the other world, 
and sent back to this, which is the opinion of many (though I 
think too much inclining to superstition) ; or lastly, whether, as 
infinitely the greatest part imagine, they were really the pro- 
duction of some choice inhabitant of New Bethlehem, is not 
necessary nor easy to determine." It is then recounted how 
the fragment was found in the hands of a bookseller in the 
Strand, who would take "no consideration farther than the 
payment of a small bill I owed him, which at that time he said 
he looked on as so much money given him." The work itself 
consists of twenty-five chapters of the first book and one of the 
nineteenth. It belongs with that long series of writings to 
which Lucian gave the impulse, a form still beloved in the 
eighteenth century though now out of favor. In spite of his 
love for Lucian this was hardly the kind of thing best suited to 
Fielding's talent. After the first ten chapters, with their whim- 
sical satire and lively portrayal of souls on their way to the 
other world, the author enters upon a long-winded account of 
the transmigrations of Julian the Apostate and ends his book 
with a biography of Anne Boleyn. All of it is readable, but 
the latter part is singularly ineffective. 

1 Though it is possible that Jonathan Wild, like other works first 
printed in the Miscellanies, may be earlier \}i\2lVl Joseph Andrezvs, there 
is no reason, in the lack of evidence, to consider them othei'wise than 
in the published order. 



INTRODUCTION li 

This need not destroy our pleasure in the ironical descrip- 
tions of the newly liberated souls who still retain the passions 
and prejudices of their former state, in the quaint conceits 
which mark the chapters dealing with the allotment of for- 
tunes to souls destined to live other lives on earth, and in the 
justice of the whimsical punishments imposed on the guilty 
by King Minos. Here we have Lord Scrape condemned to 
furnish all comers with money because he had been miserly ; 
a poet commended for a single kind deed rather than for his 
dramatic works ; the spirit of a poor man who had been hanged 
for steahng eighteenpence admitted to Elysium because he 
had ruined himself for his family and a friend ; and, not to 
prolong the list, a wise and witty scene in which certain famous 
authors discourse of things literary. 

Jonathan Wild, the other narrative of the Miscellanies, is a 
far more important work. Indeed, in its way, it is well-nigh 
perfect. Taking as his text the career of a notorious rogue 
who was hanged in 1725, Fielding has depicted with savage 
satire "the Progress of a Rogue to the Gallows," constantly 
reminding the reader of the slight difference between this man's 
deeds and those of most great men of history. From begin- 
ning to end his satire never fails or even flags. Throughout, 
this thief, this monstrous embodiment of human selfishness 
and depravity, is commended for his elevation of spirit and the 
perfection of his villainy. His greatness is insisted on. He 
learns to steal, robs his associates in crime, organizes a band of 
thieves and murderers over whom he rules with unscrupulous 
tyranny, indulges his lust as he does his avarice with the coolest 
calculation, and ends his career on the gallows, — "a death," 
says the author, " which hath been alone wanting to complete 
the characters of several ancient and modern heroes, whose 
histories would then have been read with much greater pleasure 
by the wisest in all ages." 



lii INTRODUCTION 

The book is not altogether a pleasant one to read. The 
irony is too searching, too unrelieved, too perfect. Many good 
people have shrunk from it with a shudder. The gentle soul 
of Sir Walter Scott apparently found the satire unbearable and 
spoke of the book as a " picture of complete vice, unrelieved 
by anything of human feeling." There can be no hesitation, 
however, in saying that Sir Walter's generous humanity caused 
him to overlook the fundamental conception oi Jonatha7i Wild. 
Fielding was careful to say in his introductory chapter that 
greatness and goodness have often been confounded, " whisreas 
no two things can possibly be more distinct from each other. 
For greatness consists in bringing all manner of mischief on 
mankind, and goodness in removing it from them." His whole 
attemp't, then, is to shatter the towers of false greatness ; not 
once is his artillery turned on virtue. The book is a *' picture 
of complete vice " to be sure, but it is really instinct with 
human feeling, to turn Scott's phrase another way. The touch- 
ing story of Heartfree, though it is made to fit the setting per- 
fectly, furnishes a necessary contrast to the life of Wild. 
Without it the irony would perhaps be too unrelieved for any 
but the most sardonic moods. The shades are deep enough as 
it is. The narrative is certainly not virginibiis piierisque nor for 
any one who is unable to distinguish the underlying difference 
between right and wrong, between virtue and success. 

In turning from Jonathan Wild to The History of Tom 
Jones, a Foundling (1749), reader and critic alike must feel a 
sense of relief. The tension of the former work is almost too 
severe; the latter introduces us to a healthy, hearty world, 
where good as nearly balances evil as it does in real life, and 
where the only sins to be castigated are the fruits of animalism 
and hypocrisy. It is the legitimate successor oi Joseph Andrews 
and greater than the earlier novel in a good many ways. By 
common consent it is regarded as Fielding's masterpiece, nor 



INTRODUCTION liii 

is it likely to be cast down from that proud eminence. If he 
had written only this one book, Fielding would still be regarded 
as a member of that inner circle of novelists to which but 
few have attained. Here he shows his powers at their best, — 
his unflagging vigor of thought, imagination, and phrase, his 
splendid flow of satirical and vitalizing humor, and, in spite of 
certain critics like Dr. Johnson, who regarded Fielding as a 
ruffian, and Taine, who rather unamiably spoke of him as an 
"amiable buffalo," his tender appreciation of the delicate 
shades of nobility and virtue. Tom Jones has the advantage of 
Joseph And7'-ews in its very clear and definite plan. It is more 
mature, though youthful in the same delightful way, more 
coherent, and more solid. 

The novel, indeed, is constructed on a generous scale. It 
recounts the lives of the titular hero and his circle of acquaint- 
ance. Skillfully welded, they are unfolded to the reader in a 
complex series of events which for the most part are not of 
theniselves very extraordinary but which never fail of interest. 
Tom Jones, the foundling, is informally adopted by Mr. All- 
worthy, a country gentleman of great wealth and goodness. 
He is educated with the son of his foster father's sister, young 
Blifil. His innocent and frolicsome boyhood is delightfully 
painted. Later, as the result partly of his own misconduct but 
more by the malice and treachery of Blifil, he is cast off by 
Allworthy, sets out from home with no definite purpose, and 
meets with many adventures on the roads of western England. 
Before this happens, however, he has fallen in love with the 
beautiful Sophia Western, the only daughter of a neighboring 
squire, and is beloved by her in turn. After his departure she 
is urged to marry Blifil against her will and flees from home 
with her maid, Mrs. Honour. There follows a complicated 
series of adventures in which most of the personages of the 
story are involved. Finally Sophia meets her cousin, Mrs. Fitz 



liv INTRODUCTION 

Patrick, and goes with her to London, where she makes her 
home with Lady Bellaston. Thither Jones follows her and is 
involved in a new series of adventures which are creditable 
neither to his brain nor his morals, though he honestly tries to 
live righteously and to rescue Sophia from the clutches of her 
enemies, who number not only the despicable Lady Bellaston 
and a nobleman who wishes to marry her, but her aunt and her 
father, who speedily come to town. Thither also come Squire 
Allworthy and the villainous Blifil. Poor distressed Sophia is 
ground between the upper and nether millstones of the con- 
flicting wishes of her relatives and her love for Jones. She 
believes her lover to be more guilty than he is and nearly suc- 
ceeds in stifling her regard for him. He too meets with mis- 
fortunes, though not in proportion to his deserts, and is finally 
arrested on the charge of murdering a man in a street quarrel. 
From this he is released, partly through the efforts of various 
persons whom he has befriended and partly by the discovery 
of Blifil' s unspeakable villainy, for that young man eventually 
overreaches himself. In the event Jones is proved to be the 
son of Allworthy' s sister and is acknowledged as such at the 
very time when Blifil is disgraced. Sophia, in spite of resolu- 
tions of spinsterhood, forgives him readily — all too readily — 
and consents to an immediate marriage. The many characters 
of the story who stand in need of forgiveness are duly forgiven 
or disposed of by death or disappearance, while all those who 
have any claims to sympathy are rewarded with good fortune 
and happiness. So the curtain falls on a scene of domestic 
bliss in which the beauteous Sophia and the reformed Thomas 
Jones are the central figures. 

As to the stupendous achievement of the novel there can be 
no question. Beyond all cavil it is supremely great. By the 
very might of its revelation of human nature it disarms criti- 
cism and tempts to the use of the superlative. Indeed, where 



INTRODUCTION Iv 

Gibbon and Scott and, with reservations, Thackeray have so 
indulged themselves, there is excuse for us. Yet for that rea- 
son the book needs no praise, but only the explanation of its 
virtues and the enumeration of its defects. The merit of it 
consists in the performance of what Fielding in his prefatory 
chapter promised to give the reader : " The provision then 
which we have here made is no other than Human Nature. — 
In like manner, the excellence of the mental entertainment con- 
sists less in the subject than in the author's skill in well dressing 
it up." In other words, Tom Jones vs, great because it pictures 
real men and women, and because its craftmanship is marvelous. 
As to the characters, the most various opinions have been 
expressed, though no one has yet arisen to say that they are 
not truly flesh and blood. Fielding, said Thackeray in his pref- 
ace to Pendennis, was the last English novelist who was " per- 
mitted to depict to his utmost power a man" ; and Fielding, we 
might add, has suffered from his frankness in painting certain 
characters and certain scenes which no right-thinking man can 
commend. In spite of stains upon their reputations, however, 
the men and women of Tom Jones are, almost without excep- 
tion, gloriously alive. As for Tom himself, though by no means 
a hero in the conventional sense, he is a most interesting young 
person. His lack of moral stamina in conflict with his really 
excellent principles, his selfishness oddly mixed with extraordi- 
nary generosity, his cowardly weakness combined with vigorous 
manliness of body and soul, — all these things present that 
painful contrast which is always present to some degree in the 
undeveloped man. Pendennis and Richard Feverel have many 
of the same characteristics. From one point of view all three 
got more than they deserved, yet all three are in the main 
sound and good. Tom's bad qualities need not be condoned, 
nor should he be absolutely condemned. He became, one can- 
not doubt, a useful citizen, a faithful and unselfish husband, and 



Ivi INTRODUCTION 

a good Christian. He was one of those scapegraces who repent 
sincerely and are spared by fate as far as the world can see. 

The lovely Sophia is not less persuasive, while she gains the 
unreserved respect and sympathy of all who know her. What 
man ever read Tom Jones without becoming for the nonce her 
admirer? Times have changed, it is true, and our ideals of 
womanhood are not altogether those of Fielding's day. Most 
of us find Sophia excessively passive and absurdly plastic, 
but we are taken captive by her goodness and beauty all the 
same. She is vastly the superior of poor Tom in every way, 
and because she is the embodiment of the eternal virtues of 
womanhood she can never lose her freshness of appeal. That 
the a^uthor's first wife sat for the picture as well as for the por- 
trait of Amelia is of no special importance to us — except as 
it makes us honor Henry Fielding — in view of the greater fact 
that the two are types of womankind such as the world could 
ill spare. 

It is almost sacrilege to speak of Blifil after Sophia. Here, 
one cannot but feel, hatred of cant and hypocrisy carried 
Fielding too far. Blifil is too perfect a villain. He overacts the 
part and becomes a monster, — a thing to shudder at but not 
to believe in. On the other hand, we do not altogether believe 
in Mr. Allworthy because he is too good, or rather because 
his humanity is too thin. He is an excellent eulogy but not 
always a man. Of the other characters of this multiplex tableau 
it would not be profitable to speak at length. They are all 
living and breathing creatures, neither better nor worse than 
the average of their generation. Bluff Squire Western, stub- 
born, tyrannical, unspeakably foul-mouthed, yet not without 
redeeming traits, is probably but a composite of many coun- 
try gentlemen. The sisters of the two squires, the one prim 
and not impeccable, the other obstinate and conceited, are as 
well done as their brothers. Mrs. Honour and the landladies 



INTRODUCTION Ivii 

need no commendation, especially the excellent Mrs. Miller, 
who is a good and true woman though not very wise. As for 
Lady Bellaston, cynical and passionate, Mrs. Fitz Patrick, fool- 
ish and deceptive, let us, while we wonder at their creator's 
art, hope that such types do not exist to-day. Square and 
Thwackum, twin representatives of philosophy and piety, who 
are equally destitute of true religion ; poor Partridge, immortal 
representative of masculine weakness ; young Nightingale, as 
ready to give good advice and to follow the wrong path as 
Jones himself ; the Seagrim family and Mrs. Waters — what 
other novel can show a wider range of perfectly individualized 
characters? 

In Tom Jones Fielding has attained the maturity of his art. 
He handles his material with consummate skill, never allows 
the unessential to obtrude, yet wisely permits himself the 
utmost latitude of space in developing his theme. Such art 
is unhasting and unresting. The phrase fits the thought, the 
thought the situation, the situation the general plan. It is 
altogether probable that the author's early training as a play- 
wright helped him to an easy mastery of narrative form. The 
very haste and profusion of his dramatic work must have given 
him an eye for situation and a nice sense for the arrangement 
of material. How to make such episodes as the Man of the 
HilV^ story accord with this praise is difficult to see, to be 
sure. Indeed, in spite of the historical reasons for their intro- 
duction, allying the work with the Picaresque novel, one can- 
not help feeling that their insertion is a weakness. Yet the 
very fact that they have nothing to do with the plot and are 
easily skipped, renders them less obnoxious. Certain other 
faults which are inherent in the author rather than in the. book 
can best be discussed in another connection. As a whole, Tom 
Jones is a picture of eighteenth-century life and manners drawn 
with unfailing vigor and unfailing insight, — so wonderful a 



Iviii INTRODUCTION 

picture indeed that it transcends the limits of time and takes 
its place in universal literature. 

It could scarcely be expected, perhaps, that Fielding's next 
novel should be in all ways so great as Tom JoJies. Amelia 
was published less than two years after the work which, as he 
said in the dedication, represented '' the labours of some years 
of my life." In that he had employed his experience of life — 
" all the wit and humour of which I am master," as he says — 
while Amelia was rather the deliberate product of eighteen 
months. Consequently it is less grandiose though scarcely less 
masterly, — more subdued though just as vigorous. It could not 
well be spared from the list of his works, because it shows cer- 
tain sides of his talent which had not before found expression. 
It is more tender, more delicate in its appreciation of the finer 
shades of human nature than were the earlier novels. In 
short, it represents the ripe and mellow wisdom of a great 
man's full maturity, and even if not so packed with riches as 
To7n Jones, it shows a soberer realization of life and truth. The 
reason for this difference between two works so little sepa- 
rated in time has often been sought, but it is really no mystery. 
Henry Fielding's education was completed by his experiences 
as a police magistrate, of that there can be no doubt. He 
published Tom Jones only two months after his induction into 
the office ; in Amelia for the first time he gave his new self 
expression. Thereafter he put his best efforts into the cause of 
righting wrong and helping the unfortunate. That he laughed 
at his own philanthropy made it no less valuable, and we like 
him the better because he did so. That he found no more 
time to write novels would be a cause for regret if he had not 
already run the gamut of experience and feeling so thoroughly 
in the series of works which culminated in Amelia. 

The novel is well named, for in the heroine it centers and 
has life. The other characters, though a splendid company, 



INTRODUCTION lix 

are but planetary. They come and go, but they interest us 
chiefly because of their relations to Amelia. That we find 
her husband, Lieutenant WilHam Booth, in prison on a false 
charge in the beginning of the story, that he meets there Miss 
Mathews, a former acquaintance and a much-abused if erring 
woman, who is accused of murder, and that they tell each 
other their stories, interests us very much till the door is flung 
open and Amelia rushes into her husband's arms. From that 
time on her adventures — the alternation of joy and despair into 
which Booth's imprudence and misfortune bring her — are our 
chief concerns. She had made a runaway marriage with a 
penniless lieutenant, had followed him to Gibraltar on cam- 
paign, had been defrauded of her fortune by a sister, had 
sufl'ered with her Booth when he experimented as a farmer, and 
now in London lived a most precarious life. That at the end 
of a series of new complications, in which she is pursued by a 
noble lord and harassed by the frequent imprisonment of her 
husband, she is restored to her fortune and is permitted to Hve 
the rest of her days in prosperity, gives us unalloyed satisfaction. 
" To have invented Amelia," says Thackeray,^ "is not only 
a triumph of art, but it is a good action." Like Sophia, she 
was modeled after Fielding's first wife, even to the unfortu- 
nate accident which rendered her nose more charming than it 
would have been if perfect. She is, nevertheless, highly indi- 
vidualized, — not merely a Sophia of maturer age, — which 
shows that the husband mixed his colors with imagination, to 
quote the familiar story. There is but one fault to find with 
Amelia. She carries her amiability towards her husband too far. 
Gentle Sophia was of sterner stuff and would have given her 
husband much less rope, I fancy, had he ever forgotten his duty 
as a husband and a reformed character. Yet in spite of this, 
Amelia is very human. In a memorable conversation which 

^ English Humourists. 



Ix ■ INTRODUCTION 

she held with Mrs. Atkinson/ the latter said : " ' Indeed, I 
believe the first wish of our whole sex is to be handsome.' 
Here both the ladies fixed their eyes on the glass, and both 
smiled." She can be very bitter, too, against her husband's 
enemies. As for intellect, she is greatly the superior of Booth, 
though she reverences his gifts. Perhaps he was not altogether 
insensible of this. Certainly he never said a wiser thing than 
when he remarked ^ that " she was the safest treasurer." 

Indeed, Captain Booth is a despicable weakling in spite of 
his handsome person and his bravery in the wars. Compared 
with him Tom Jones is a hero of the first magnitude. His 
truth to nature and his real love for his wife are the only 
redeeming features of the portrait. He is vain, he is impru- 
dent, he lacks constancy and application. Probably no reader 
of the novel has ever forgiven him for allowing poor Amelia's 
supper to grow cold while he was losing his money at a gaming 
table, not even when he gained her forgiveness by his abject 
repentance. He is a far less interesting figure than are the 
two colonels, Bath and James. The former, with his temper 
always cocked and primed against fancied insults, with his 
extraordinary mixture of bravado and real bravery, is some- 
thing too theatrical ; but he delights us all the same. His 
duel with Booth is a master stroke of pure comedy. James is 
no less interesting, though in a quieter way. He is thoroughly 
unprincipled, yet a very good gentleman in his feelings and 
actions. He would not do wrong except in his own interest, 
and he is not incapable of acting the part of a true friend when 
he cannot possibly gain anything by it. 

Dr. Harrison, who is the dens ex machifta throughout the 
story, is, like Allworthy in Tom Jones, rather too far removed 
from the turmoil of human life, though he gains in truth by 
his innocent vanity and liability to errors of judgment. He 

1 Book VII, chap. iii. ^ Book XI, chap. viii. 



INTRODUCTION Ixi 

persecutes and rescues the Booths with unfailing regularity 
whenever the plot takes a turn this way or that. Yet, all in 
all, he is a noble and lofty character without whom Fielding's 
gallery would not be complete. Indeed, it is a little strange 
that the novehst had such consummate power in drawing 
clergymen. Parson Adams is certainly the finest man that he 
created, and Dr. Harrison is far from the least successful. 
The shadowy peer, on the other hand, is not well done. The 
eighteenth century dearly loved a lord, but it could not picture 
one, at least nobody but Swift succeeded in doing so. Ser- 
geant Atkinson is better executed, though he is scarcely so 
interesting as his learned and unfortunate wife. More inter- 
esting than either is Miss Mathews, who, like Letitia in Jona- 
than Wild, is a victim of circumstances. One wishes that she 
had come to an equally desirable end. The minor characters, 
Trent, the gambler Robinson, the keeper, Mrs. Ellison, .and 
the rest, are all well done with that minute care and lavishness 
of creative energy which is characteristic of Fielding. Even the 
slightest sketches are individualized and never show haste or 
lack interest. Indeed, if Amelia can be said to surpass the 
earlier novels in any way, it is in the sympathy and apprecia- 
tion which it shows for the finer distinctions of character. 

In most respects, indeed, Amelia scarcely equals Tom Jones. 
It possesses less variety and at times almost drags, though one 
can hardly believe that Richardson was telling the truth when 
he said that he " could only get through the first volume," 
especially when we recall that Johnson sat up all night over it. 
As a matter of fact, it probably suflfers from the author's grow- 
ing interest in humanitarian affairs. There is a tendency to 
emphasize ideas and opinions at the expense of the story, — 
a course which almost invariably weakens a piece of fiction. 
Yet even so, Amelia is a great novel as well as a great book. 
It is both wise and good, full of the riches of observation and 



Ixii INTRODUCTION 

experience no less than of imagination. Like all of Field- 
ing's work, despite the coarse passages which we regret, it is 
thoroughly healthy and, to well-balanced and mature minds, 
thoroughly wholesome. Its wit is as sparkling as ever and its 
humor as captivating. It is vigorous, sane, well constructed, 
and written in the style which is and must be the despair of 
all but the chosen few, who are found only once or twice in a 
generation. 

Though Fielding's last work, the Voyage to Lisbon, is not 
fiction, but only the record of a few months told without con- 
scious art in the style of a journal, it cannot be ignored in any 
study of his narrative writings, since it shows him off his guard 
and 'furnishes almost unexampled proof of his genius. The 
contents of the book have already been sufficiently described, 
but a word may be said concerning the extraordinary power 
which it displays in the depiction of men and things. Leaving 
out of account the interest which it possesses as autobiography, 
it has qualities that give it a permanent and lofty place in 
literature. Every scene and every person described is vividly 
presented to the reader. There is no sign of effort, no sug- 
gestion of labor, yet the effects intended are accomplished as 
surely as in the most elaborate work. In the accommodation 
of simple means to a given purpose Fielding never did better, 
which is equivalent to saying that nobody else has done so. 
The captain was merely an accessory of the voyage, but he 
cannot be forgotten much more easily than Amelia herself. 

*' What a wonderful art ! " exclaims Thackeray in beginning 
a very exclamatory but glorious appreciation of Fielding. 
" What an admirable gift of nature was it by which the author 
of these tales was endowed, and which enabled him to fix our 
interest, to waken our sympathy, to seize upon our credulity, 
so that we believe in his people — speculate gravely upon their 
faults or their excellencies, prefer this one or that, deplore 



INTRODUCTION Ixiii 

Jones's fondness for drink and play,^ Booth's fondness for 
play and drink, and the unfortunate position of the wives of 
both gentlemen — love and admire those ladies with all our 
hearts, and talk about them as faithfully as if we had break- 
fasted with them this morning in their actual drawing-rooms, 
or should meet them this afternoon in the Park ! What a 
genius ! what a vigour ! what a bright-eyed intelligence and 
observation ! what a wholesome hatred for meanness and 
knavery ! what a vast sympathy ! what a cheerfulness ! what a 
manly relish of life ! what a love of human kind ! what a poet 
is here ! — watching, meditating, brooding, creating ! What 
multitudes of truths has that man left behind him ! What gen- 
erations he has taught to laugh wisely and fairly ! What 
scholars he has formed and accustomed to the exercise of 
thoughtful humour and the manly play of wit ! What a cour- 
age he had ! What a dauntless and constant cheerfulness of 
intellect, that burned bright and steady through all the storms 
of his life, and never deserted its last wreck ! It is wonderful 
to think of the pains and misery which the man suffered ; the 
pressure of want, illness, remorse which he endured ; and that 
the writer was neither malignant nor melancholy, his view of 
truth never warped, and his generous human kindness never 
surrendered." ^ 

ESSAYS 

Though Fielding's fame deservedly rests for the most part on 
his novels, they have overshadowed rather unfairly his essays and 
other discursive writings. Many biographers and critics have 
bewailed the precious time which he wasted as a journalist on 

1 It may be remarked that Jones is nowhere represented as mdulgmg 
in play. 

2 English Htimoiirists. 



Ixiv INTRODUCTION 

productions of only ephemeral value. Because he had almost 
unexampled power as an analyst and painter of humanity, 
there has been a natural tendency to lament that he did not 
give himself up entirely to such work, and a disposition to 
regard his labors in other fields as interesting only because 
they throw light on the development of the novelist. Yet at 
their best his essays are almost as wonderful in their way as 
his novels, and they deserve a higher place in the history 
of English discourse than has generally been assigned them. 
They show his style in all its simple beauty ; they are full of 
wit and wisdom, quaint fancy and solid thought ; they display 
the matchless vigor of idea and phrase v/hich is Fielding's 
charm. Though they represent no such new departure in the 
field of letters as do the novels, they nevertheless entitle their 
author to an honorable place in the ranks of English essayists, 
along with Dryden, Steele, Addison, Christopher North, Lamb, 
and Macaulay. 

They are singularly uneven, it is true, both in value and 
interest. Inevitably so, indeed, since they were written at 
various times and for many different purposes. They often 
betray the haste of their composition, as the novels never do, 
for many of them were composed to meet the demands of the 
hour in politics and social life, and — there can be no harm 
in adding — to supply their author with ready money. They 
are sometimes barren enough, — bits of journalistic writing that 
fulfilled their purpose and have no longer any excuse for being, 
save as they illustrate the career of a man of genius. The 
journalism of a great writer ought not to be allowed to rise up 
against his literary work, as is so often the case. Yet it must 
be remembered with regard to the most fugitive of Fielding's 
works that ideas which seem to us dreary commonplaces were 
often novel in his time, and so, historically speaking, they are 
of much greater interest than at first appears. We may be 



INTRODUCTION Ixv 

excused for not reading these essays, but we should be careful 
not to cavil overmuch at their substance. 

By far the greater part of Fielding's writing in the essay 
style was done for one or another of the four journals with 
which he was at different times connected. The success of 
the Tatler and the Spectator had made ^uch series of papers 
very popular with writers as with readers. Consequently Field- 
ing turned to it almost as a matter of course when he had 
quitted the stage and had not yet found means of support. In 
some ways he was well fitted for the task. He had learned 
how to turn a phrase and outline a situation by writing a long 
series of plays ; at thirty- two years- he had had as much experi- 
ence with the vicissitudes of human life as most men have at 
twice that age ; he was abundantly gifted with humor and the 
power of satire. So he might well feel assurance of success in 
such a venture when in 1739 ^^ joined Ralph in the publica- 
tion of the triweekly Champioft. Yet for some reason, in this 
first series of papers he never did anything better than could 
be expected of a well-equipped journalist. The very fact that 
it is almost impossible to distinguish the numbers which he 
contributed from those of his collaborator, who was merely a 
moderately clever hack writer, is convincing proof that the 
Champion is best left to oblivion. Not but what it contains 
some things that have a good deal of interest and are unmis- 
takably the work of Fielding's pen. There is much humor in 
the papers and a good deal of sense, but the form was not yet 
so familiar to him that he could turn off this taskwork easily. 
Perhaps, too, his severe studies in the law at this time tempo- 
rarily exhausted his best energies and made the production 
of light-hearted essays peculiarly irksome. The journal is now 
chiefly interesting because here and there can be detected 
slight sketches of characters and ideas which he afterward 
used in maturer form in his novels. 



Ixvi INTRODUCTION 

His next venture in the same style was the True Patriot^ 
which with its successor, the Jacobite's /ourfial, ran for about 
three years. Unlike the Champion, the main concern of these 
papers was with politics. The immediate occasion for begin- 
ning them was the Stuart rebellion of 1745 ; and when that 
occasion had passed they were continued in the interest 
of the Whigs. For this reason, though they are far better 
than the earlier series — ■" it must be remembered that Joseph 
Andrews had already appeared — and though they do not 
leave the same feeling of taskwork unwillingly performed, 
they have scarcely greater permanent interest. They give a 
valuable picture of the state of the public mind at that time, 
and they have a vigorous play of humor, but they could not 
be seriously considered in a history of the EngHsh essay. It 
is interesting to note, however, that Parson Adams was revived 
and figures as a correspondent with all his familiar character- 
istics of body and mind. 

Fielding's last journalistic effort, the Covent-Garden Jour- 
nal, which ran through the greater part of the year 1752, was 
far more pleasing and valuable. By this time he had published 
both Tom Jo7ies and Amelia, and he had acquired a mastery over 
language which must have made the task of writing very light. 
Indeed, it does not seem improbable that he looked upon the 
composition of the journal as a relaxation from his useful but 
rather mean and disagreeable duties as a police magistrate. 
Certainly he entered upon it with at least his customary zeal 
and, as Sir Alexander Drawcansir, proceeded to castigate the 
follies of his countrymen with as clear an eye and as steady a 
hand as in any of his satires. His interest in social reform is 
very marked, though his sketches show a broad sympathy and 
a good-natured humor which is characteristic of only his later 
years. Much of the work is ephemeral, of course, but the solid 
learning and delightful wit of some of it remain undimmed 



INTRODUCTION Ixvii 

after a century and a half have passed. Hypocrisy in its many 
guises comes in for its customary lashing at his hands, but 
other vices are not spared, while the good and the partly good 
receive their due meed of praise. A fund of learning, wide in 
range though not very deep, diversifies but does not burden 
the pages. Kindliness everywhere breathes from them, even 
when the sins of the age are held up to scorn. It is noticeable 
that many of the best essays have a literary flavor, as in No. 
lo on reading, No. 23 on the monarchy of letters, and No. 31 
on emendations of Shakespeare. 

Of the essays printed in the Miscellanies of 1743, — On Con- 
versation, On the Knowledge of the Characters of Me?t, On 
Nothing, and Of the Remedy of Affliction for the Loss of our 
Friends, — the first and the third are perhaps best worthy of 
remembrance, though all of them contain passages of much 
sense and genuine humor. That entitled On the K?iowledge 
of the Characters of Men is, in reality, an unmeasured diatribe 
against Fielding's pet aversion, the vice of hypocrisy. Nowhere 
else does he lash the sin with such fullness of exposition, 
though he was always vigorous in his expression of contempt 
for it. Whether he was quite fair is open to doubt, but he had 
the best of intentions. It is impossible to believe, for example, 
that a man of his frank nature was so insensible to the advances 
of friendship as he advises his readers to be, yet the maxim is 
wise. Against the profession of censorious piety he becomes 
eloquent : " But, to say the truth ; a sour, morose, ill-natured, 
censorious sanctity, never is, nor can be sincere. Is a readi- 
ness to despise, to hate, and to condemn, the temper of a 
Christian? Can he, who passes sentence on the souls of men 
with more delight and triumph than the devil can execute it, 
have the impudence to pretend himself the disciple of One 
who died for the sins of mankind? Is not such a sanctity the 
true mark of that hypocrisy, which in many places of Scripture, 



Ixviii INTRODUCTION 

and particularly in the twenty-third chapter of St. Matthew, is 
so bitterly inveighed against?" The man who should try to 
guide himself in his relations with his fellows by the rules laid 
down in this essay would doubtless find himself led into the 
most unjust actions ; but that fact does not detract from its 
interest as a document for the study of the author's mind, 
which is its true value. The same may be said of the essay on 
the Loss of Friends, which reminds one of Parson Adams' 
discourse on the same subject in Joseph Ajidrews,^ where the 
difficulty of practicing in contrast to preaching such philosophy 
is well illustrated when Adams hears of the supposed death of 
his httle son. 

The Essay on Conversation is, on the whole, a much more 
successful piece of work. The title scarcely indicates the 
scope of the essay, which is in reality a treatise on the essential 
nature of good breeding. It is both wise and witty, and can 
be read to-day with as much profit as in the eighteenth cen- 
tury. Good breeding he defines as "the art of pleasing, or 
contributing as much as possible to the ease and happiness 
of those with whom you converse." He illustrates his position 
by referring to the various situations in which man as a " social 
animal " is placed, and gives lively examples both of good 
and ill breeding in each case. The essay should be read to be 
appreciated, but the conclusions with which it ends may be 
quoted to show the gentle wisdom of its teaching. 

" First, that every person who indulges his ill-nature or 
vanity, at the expence of others; and in introducing uneasi- 
ness, vexation, and confusion into society, however exalted or 
high-titled he may be, is thoroughly ill-bred. 

"Secondly, that whoever, from the goodness of his dispo- 
sition or understanding, endeavours to his utmost to cultivate 
the good-humour and happiness of others, and to contribute 

1 Book IV, chap. viii. 



INTRODUCTION Ixix 

to the ease and comfort of all his acquaintance, however low 
in rank fortune may have placed him, or however clumsy he 
may be in his figure or demeanour, hath, in the truest sense of 
the word, a claim to good-breeding." 

The wit of the essay is genuine and spontaneous. "With 
what envy," Fielding exclaims, " must a swine, or a much less 
voracious animal, be survey 'd by a glutton ! " In describing 
the duties of a host, he says : " Lastly ; in placing your guests, 
regard is rather to be had to birth than fortune : for though 
purse-pride is forward enough to exalt itself, it bears a degra- 
dation with more secret comfort and ease than the former, as 
being more inwardly satisfied with itself, and less apprehensive 
of neglect or contempt." One is tempted to wonder whether 
the author himself had not felt the sting. Again, he argues 
with delightful gravity that if clothes are to be admitted as 
evidence of good breeding, a well-dressed monkey has an 
excellent chance of social success. Much of the comment 
in the essay seems a little trite to-day, perhaps, but such things 
have never been said with better grace or more lively humor. 

The Essay on Nothing, as the name implies, is simply a bit 
of fooling, but it is rich in satire and contains many excellent 
observations. If the verbal quibbles grow a little tiresome to 
the reader, they are overbalanced by the dry sententiousness 
with which the essay abounds. To quote these things out of 
their setting would be an ungracious task, and it is entirely 
unnecessary since the whole can be read and appreciated with 
little effort — by an expenditure of time and energy which, as 
the author might have said, amounts to nothing. 

We must now pass to the consideration of those essays 
which, though never hitherto pubKshed separately, form the 
most valuable contributions of Fielding to English discursive 
writing, namely the introductory and incidental disquisitions 
in Joseph Andrews and Tom Jo?ies. Their interest and value 



Ixx INTRODUCTION 

have never been denied by the discerning, though they have 
been too much neglected. In spite of the fact that in the 
French translation of Torn Joiies^ for example, they are entirely 
omitted, they are as necessary to the artistic unity of that 
novel as are most of the events narrated. Mr. Austin Dobson 
writes with full appreciation of this when he says of Amelia : ^ 
" The absence of the initial chapters, which gave so much 
variety to Tom /o7ies, tends to heighten the sense of impatience 
which, it must be confessed, occasionally creeps over the reader 
of ADieliar But it is not simply variety that is added to the 
novels by means of the essays, important as that is. Of even 
greater value is the opportunity which they afford the author 
of expressing with the greatest freedom his own personality 
and the principles of literary art which he followed. The use- 
fulness of this in so subjective a form of literature as the novel 
of manners is not to be denied. Without clogging the progress 
of the story they enable the author to make those comments 
on life and art which connect the novel with the world of 
thought. In the excursions of some authors, where the com- 
ment is interspersed with the narrative, the reader is disagree- 
ably reminded that the characters are J3ut puppets after all. 
In Thackeray, though his remarks are always delightful of 
themselves, one sometimes feels this unpleasant sense of 
sudden transition from the world of imagination to the 
author's study. Fielding found a better way in To77i Jones. 
Accordingly he lavished upon these essays all the rich fund 
of his imagination and experience, warning^ his successors, 
however, that they would adopt the same course at their peril. 
Indeed, a form which, as Henry Fielding confessed, cost him 
the " greatest pains " is not one to be adopted lightly by men 
of weaker brain. 

I212. 

2 Book IX, chap, i, No. IX of this volume. 



INTRODUCTION Ixxi 

Quite apart from the question of their value to the novel, 
the introductory chapters in Tom Jones and the discursive sec- 
tions in Fielding's other works form a series of most delight- 
ful little essays, which show his genius in its best light. Their 
wisdom is so tempered with humor that though he professes ^ 
to be " laboriously dull," they are never wanting in the highest 
interest. Their good nature is so contagious that the most 
morose must feel its effect. They display the keenest insight 
into the secrets of mankind, yet never betray a tendency either 
to petty pessimism or equally cheap optimism. They deal 
lightly with trivial subjects, yet show the tempered wisdom and 
the Olympian outlook of their author. They are not without 
mannerisms of thought and style, but that is no reproach, 
since mannerisms are only despicable when adopted to cover 
a writer's nakedness. In few other authors can be found such 
a combination of high spirits with excellent sense and sound 
workmanship as in Fielding, and nothing in Fielding shows 
this combination to better advantage than these essays. 

The subjects are most various. There are grave discourses 
on the style and conduct of fiction, not without an underplay 
of mockery that cautions the reader against taking things too 
seriously. There are satirical accounts of current literary 
fashions and of critics. Nice distinctions are drawn between 
" what is to be deemed plagiarism in a modern author and 
what is to be considered as lawful prize." ^ Authors are advised 
of the fact that they will do better for " having some knowledge 
of the subject" on which they write.^ Satire is continually 
used, but with such good humor and such generous apprecia- 
tion of real worth that no one could properly feel hurt by the 
strictures made. Nowhere else in all Fielding's work is the 

1 Book V, chap, i, No. X of this volume. 

2 No. XIV of this volume. 

3 No. XV of this volume. 



Ixxii INTRODUCTION 

dangerous weapon of irony more gently used or more surely. 
There is nothing savage in these mature reflections of a man 
of genius. Their temper is well illustrated by a fine passage 
in the introduction to the seventh book.-^ 

" Upon the whole then, the man of candour and of true 
understanding, is never hasty to condemn. He can censure 
an imperfection, or even a vice, without rage against the guilty 
party. In a word, they are the same folly, the same childish- 
ness, the same ill-breeding, and the same ill-nature, which raise 
all the clamours and uproars both in life, and on the stage. The 
worst of men generally have the words rogue and villain most 
in their mouths, as the lowest of all wretches are the aptest to 
cry out low in the pit." 

I shall not discuss the quality and scope of Fielding's literary 
essays further. The present volume gives an opportunity to 
read and judge them in a fairly representative selection ; and 
careful reading, whether or not any formulated opinions are 
the result of it, is worth more than much criticism. Of his 
legal and philosophical treatises some account has been given 
in the first part of the introduction. They do not directly 
concern us here, though it may properly be said that, whatever 
their merits as discussions of the problems treated, they are 
written in a simple, clear, luminous style which might well be 
imitated by all writers on technical subjects. One could 
expect nothing else from the author of Jonathan Wild and 
Tom Jones ^ to be sure, but it is certainly unusual for men of 
such literary gifts to write legal reports. The case of Elizabeth 
Canning becomes truly interesting when recounted by the pen 
of the " father of the English novel." 

1 No. XXIII of this volume. 



INTRODUCTION Ixxiii 

III 

FIELDING'S PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE AND HIS 
PROSE STYLE 

There can be no doubt that if Fielding had been asked to 
outline his philosophy of life, he would have made merry and 
have answered that to his knowledge he possessed no such 
commodity. No man was ever less self-conscious, less con- 
cerned with abstractions. He had a good many enemies in 
his time and was called several hard names, but he was never 
accused of being either a prig or a hypocrite. In that freedom 
from suspicion of cant he must have gloried, if he thought of 
it at all ; but indeed, though his mind was trained to observa- 
tion and gifted with intuitive perception of character, he was 
not at all introspective. He was exceptionally virile both men- 
tally and physically, the kind of man that gives and takes hard 
knocks without flinching. Living as he did in the world of 
things rather than of feelings, he never elaborated for himself 
any system of thought or of ethics, but took life as he found 
it, sometimes unwisely but always bravely. 

This leads us to a consideration of the morality of his work, 
— a question which cannot be ignored and which will not down. 
Indeed, it challenges discussion not only because it has been 
much debated but because it concerns the least squeamish of 
his readers. In the first place, he was healthy, and, as I have 
said, he was always brave. While in the first flush of his 
manhood he was led by these excellent quahties in their 
lower forms of animal vigor into the reckless indulgence of his 
appetites. He reflects this loose living in many of his plays, 
those which are unobjectionable being entirely unmoral, — ebul- 
litions of high spirits or satires on such untruths of art or life 
as appeal to the healthy and rather thoughtless young man. 



Ixxiv INTRODUCTION 

His political conscience seems first to have awaked, and he 
attacked the corruption of the day with unsparing hand. At 
about the same time, and very possibly as a result of his union 
with a virtuous woman whom he fervently loved, he seems to 
have experienced a genuine conversion in the best sense of 
the word. Thenceforward he was a moralist in all his writing 
and a lover of the good in his life, though in neither was he 
stainless. He had never been deliberately wicked ; he had 
never been guilty of the sins of meanness ; but like a good 
many other young men he had given way to the thoughtless 
and selfish lusts of the flesh, to the sins of extravagance and 
prodigality, of eating and drinking and making merry. In 
short, he had never been the villain that he has sometimes 
been pictured, — the ruffian that Richardson and Johnson 
thought him. 

Yet he had to pay the penalty for his misdeeds, and he paid 
it in his art as well as in his life. He himself would have been 
the last to complain of this, though he furnishes sufficient evi- 
dence in his later works that he recognized the consequences 
of his sowing. Indeed, he paid dearly for his excesses. Not 
only did he weaken a constitution naturally very robust, but 
he wasted his little fortune and entangled his affairs to such 
an extent that all his later efforts — and he labored hard and 
well — were insufficient to provide properly for his family. 
More than that, he dulled his sensibilities by excess and coars- 
ened his moral fiber. This he shows in all his work, in spite 
of the lofty genius and true feeling which characterize it. He 
describes with too much gusto the scenes of brutality which 
he introduces into his novels, and he shows too little disap- 
proval for the moral lapses of his heroes. For indeed, this 
strain of coarseness is by no means confined to his treatment 
of the relations between men and women. The tender, brave, 
and good moralist of Tofn Jones and Amelia could not -see 



INTRODUCTION Ixxv 

that certain scenes of prison life, for example, were disgusting 
rather than amusing. If he had, he would have cut them out, 
since his manly art was not in any way designed to feed the 
taste of filth-loving readers. 

If it be urged that the coarseness of Fielding's work is due 
to the time in which he lived, that the moral standards of the 
eighteenth century were not those of the twentieth, the answer 
is ready. Many of his contemporaries actually did regret the 
stains on his pages. The opinion of Richardson doesn't mat- 
ter much, because Richardson was a vindictive enemy and in 
his own work showed a prurient sentimentalism which in its 
own way was worse than Fielding's frank portrayal of vice ; 
but there is no doubt that Dr. Johnson, who was certainly not 
particularly squeamish, held the same view. The fine ladies 
and gentlemen of the time, to be sure, were no better than 
they should have been. The country gentry were sometimes 
Squire Westerns and the parsons Trullibers. Yet the sounder 
members of society, the Squire Allworthys, the Atkinsons, the 
Joseph Andrewses if you will, could scarcely have regarded 
Tom Jones and Lady Bellaston with unmixed approval. There 
is this difference between Fielding's coarse descriptions and 
the scenes which his friend Hogarth painted, that the latter 
represents vice with such repulsiveness that each .of his pictures 
and plates is obviously didactic, while the former describes it 
at times with ill-suppressed delight. The trend of his works, 
take them all in all, is as moral as it is healthy, but certain 
episodes in them come perilously near being vicious. This lack 
of moral refinement in a man whose principles and habits, as 
far as we know, were thoroughly good may be thought with 
good reason the harvest of the wild oats which he had reck- 
lessly sowed. 

Yet we must be on our guard against overstatement, for it 
is not to the credit of any one to belong to the number of 



Ixxvi INTRODUCTION 

Fielding's traducers. His love of good finds constant expres- 
sion in his books. They are thoroughly healthy in purpose 
and method, and, I am convinced, far less likely to do harm 
to the immature mind than very many of the " problem " novels 
that are devoured to-day, a considerable number of which are 
written by women — to their shame be it said. Coleridge's 
summation of the matter in his discussion of Tom /o?ies may 
well be pondered by those who take the opposite view. 

"Therefore this novel is, and, indeed, pretends to be, no 
examplar of conduct. But, notwithstanding all this, I do 
loathe the cant which can recommend Pamela and Clarissa 
Harlowe as strictly moral, though they poison the imagination 
of the young with continued doses of tmct lyttae, while Tom 
Jones is prohibited as loose. I do not speak of young women ; 
— but a young man whose heart or feelings can be injured, or 
even his passions excited, by aught in this novel, is already 
thoroughly corrupt. There is a cheerful, sun-shiny, breezy 
spirit, that prevails everywhere, strongly contrasted with the 
close, hot, day-dreamy continuity of Richardson. Every indis- 
cretion, every immoral act, of Tom Jones, (and it must be 
remembered that he is in every one taken by surprise — his 
inward principles remaining firm — ) is so instantly punished 
by embarrassment and unanticipated evil consequences of his 
folly, that the reader's mind is not left for a moment to dwell 
or run riot on the criminal indulgence itself. In short, let the 
requisite allowance be made for the increased refinement of 
our manners, — and then I dare believe that no young man 
who consulted his heart and conscience only, without adverting 
to what the world would say — could rise from the perusal of 
Fielding's Tom Jones, Joseph Andrews, or Amelia, without 
feeling himself a better man ; — at least, without an intense 
conviction that he could not be guilty of a base act." ^ 

1 Miscellaneous Notes on Books and Authors. 



INTRODUCTION Ixxvii 

This was the deliberate judgment of a man who was not 
inchned to mince matters when it came to plain speaking of 
any sort, and it is corroborated by the evidence of many good 
people who have read Fielding and dared to speak their minds. 
Take him for all in all, though he was of too broad an intellect 
to be a didactic moralist, he never went wrong on any of the 
great principles of morality. His art is based upon them, 
indeed, as any art must be which deals primarily with human 
beings in the relations of ordinary life. Though he had his 
limitations and never quite passed from the world of the par- 
tially obvious to the world of the universal, within his province 
he was supreme. He thus can endure no comparison with 
Shakespeare, even if the poetry of the latter be left out of 
account; but in a smaller way he had a similar comprehen- 
sion of humanity and created men and women who, like Shake- 
speare's characters, are universal in that they are ever-living. 
By such means he was a teacher and a moralist. 

There is no more striking characteristic of all Fielding's 
work than its cheerfulness. He has considerable kinship to 
Chaucer in his capacity for getting entertainment from the 
most unpromising materials. Though he lacked Chaucer's 
imagination, he had the same tolerance, the same quizzical 
good humor in picturing the follies of mankind, and the same 
bright touch of irony in treating serious events. An " amiable 
buffalo," one fancies, must at times become morose, but 
Fielding never loses his imperturbable good nature. Indeed, 
his work would lose much of its sense of reality did it not dis- 
play this quality, since thereby it is consistently held down to 
solid facts. 

This leads me to speak of the honesty of his work, not 
simply that negative and rather unintelligent honesty which 
consists in photographing scenes with fidelity to detail, but 
that higher form of the virtue which insists on being true to 



Ixxviii INTRODUCTION 

the spirit as well as the letter of reality. He tells the truth 
with a smiling face and does not try to dodge the logic of a 
situation as he saw it. Bhfil is seen to have a bad heart from 
the moment when he maliciously gives Sophia's bird its free- 
dom, and Blifil is allowed to go his own way to perdition. 
Black George has stolen a small sum from Thomas Jones and 
struggles hard with fear in the hope that his conscience will 
let him keep the five hundred pounds, but he is mastered by 
his cowardice. So in the general conduct of the novels the 
same consistency is observable. They proceed steadily from 
start to finish. Given the conditions, the conclusions can 
scarcely be questioned. Very few novelists show an equal 
mastery of their materials, scarcely one the same generous and 
fair-minded spirit. Excluding the episodes, which can always 
be skipped, Tom Jones and Amelia are not loosely woven nar- 
ratives in which a partial unity is secured by consistency in 
the portraiture of the leading characters. They move, slowly 
perhaps, but evenly, towards the final chapters. Accordingly, 
their claim to consideration on the score of technical excel- 
lence is scarcely to be disputed. As stories they are well con- 
ceived and well balanced. 

"What a wonderful art ! " exclaims Thackeray in the pas- 
sage cited above. Indeed, it is a wonderful art, and in no 
way more so than in the medium employed. Fielding's mas- 
tery over English prose is only less extraordinary than his 
knowledge of human nature. His style has all the solid excel- 
lence of his method of marshahng events. It seldom glitters 
and glows, though there are few more eloquent passages in the 
language than the invocation at the beginning of the thirteenth 
book of Tom Jones} In general it flows with an even current, 
clear, warm, and unlabored, ever and anon sparkling with wit, 
often quaintly satirical, but always adequate for the purpose in 

1 No. II of this volume. 



INTRODUCTION Ixxix 

hand. It never becomes pedestrian on the one hand and 
never tires the reader by over-indulgence in ornament and 
unbridled fancy on the other. This sobriety and balance is 
characteristic of Fielding's whole art, but it is not gained at 
the expense of qualities which are more vitalizing if not more 
essential to a good prose style. The happiness of phrase, the 
flash of wit, lead the reader from page to page. At times, as 
in the battle in the churchyard, we are treated to prodigious 
burlesque. Again, we find the heat of passion or the tender- 
ness of strong affection faithfully reflected in scenes where 
phrase matches thought. The conversational tone employed so 
frequently is strengthened by a large and well-chosen vocabu- 
lary. The style is never without dignity. Indeed, perhaps its 
most obvious fault is a certain lack of suppleness, a tendency 
to use stiff constructions and sonorous words of Latin origin. 
It has not the academic grace of Addison's work on the one 
hand, nor the studied simplicity of Steele's on the other. 

When . submitted to the ultimate test, however, — its adap- 
tation to the purpose for which it is used, — Fielding's style 
leaves little to be desired. It is vigorous, varied, and instinct 
with humor, it reflects the passing mood or the immediate 
design of the author, it is without affectation or display, it is 
altogether genuine. In all this it is thoroughly characteristic 
of Fielding himself, a man not without reproach, but tender, 
generous, warm-hearted, and manly all his days, and in his 
better years earnest, sober, and unselfish. 



Ixxx INTRODUCTION 

IV 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The following list includes only such editions of Fielding's 
works as mark the constant esteem in which he has been held 
by readers since his own time, or as are readily accessible 
to-day. It includes only such biographical and critical works 
as the student or the general reader is likely to find useful. 
An exhaustive bibliography would be quite beyond the scope 
of the present volume. 

EDITIONS 

The Works of Henry Fielding, Esq., with a Life of the Author, 

edited by Arthur Murphy, 4 vols. London, 1762. Reissued in 

12 vols., 1766; in 8 vols., 1771 ; in 12 vols., 1775 and 1783 ; in 

10 vols., 1784. 
The Works of He?iry Fielding, edited by A. Chalmers, 10 vols. 

London, 1806. Reissued in 1821. 
The Works of Henry Fielding, with Memoir of the Author, by 

T, Roscoe. London, 1840. 
The Works of Hemy Fielding, with an Essay on his Life by A. 

Murphy, edited by J. P. Browne, 10 vols. London, 1871. 
The Writings of Henry Fielding, Comp?'ising his celebrated 

Works of Fiction, with a Memoir by D. Herbert. Edinburgh, 

1872. 
The Works of Hciiry Fielding, Esq., edited by Leslie Stephen, 

10 vols. London, 1882. 
The Wo?'ks of Henry Fielding, edited by George Saintsbury, 12 

vols. London, 1893. 
The Works of Henry Fielding, edited by G. H. Maynadier, 12 

vols. New York, 1903. 
The Complete Works of Henry Fielding : with an Essay on the 

Life of the Author, by W. E. Henley, 14 vols. New York, 

1903. 



INTRODUCTION Ixxxi 

BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM 

Essay on the Life afid Genius of Henry Fielding^ Esq.., by Arthur 

Murphy, Prefixed to the edition of 1762. 
The Life of Henry Fielding^ Esq., with Observations on his 

Character and Writijigs, by William Watson. Edinburgh, 

1807. This had previously appeared prefixed to a selection 

of Fielding's works. 
Me7noir, by Sir Walter Scott, in Vol. I of Ballantyne's The Novel- 
ists'' Library. London, 1821. Now to be found in Scott's Mis- 

cellaneoMs Prose Works. 
Illustratio7is of Smollett, Fielding, and Golds7nith, in a series of 

forty -one plates, designed and engraved by George Cruikshank. 

Accompanied by descriptive extracts. London, 1832. 
Memoir, by T. Roscoe, prefixed to the edition of 1840. 
Hogarth, Sinollett, and Fielding, in English Humourists of the 

Eighteenth Ce7itury, by W. M. Thackeray, 1853. 
Life of He7i7y Fieldi7igj with Notices of his Writings, his Times., 

and his Co7ite77iporaries, by Frederick Lawrence, 1855. 
O71 the Life and Writi7igs of Henry Fieldi7ig, by Thomas Keight- 

ley, in Eraser'' s Magazi7te for January and February, 1858. 
Me7noir, by D. Herbert, prefixed to the edition of 1872. 
Memoirs of Celebrated Etonians, by J. Heneage Jesse, Vol. I, 

pp. 62-88. London, 1875. 
Henry Fielding, by Austin Dobson, English Men of Letters 

Series, 1883. Revised and enlarged edition, 1900. 
Fielding's Voyage to Lisbo7i, in Eighteenth Century Vig7tettes, 

1st series, by Austin Dobson, 1892. 
Fieldi7ig's Library, in Eighteenth Ce7itury Vig7tettes, 3d series, 

by Austin Dobson, 1896. 
Fieldi7ig''s Novels, in Hours in a Library, by Leslie Stephen, 

Vol. II, 1899. 
He7try Fieldi7ig, by L(eslie) S(tephen), in Dictionary of Natio7ial 

Biography. 



SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

I 

OF PROLOGUES 

I have heard of a dramatic writer who used to say, he 
would rather write a play than a prologue ; in like manner, I 
think, I can with less pains write one of the books of this 
history, than the prefatory chapter to each of them. 

To say the truth, I believe many a hearty curse hath been 5 
devoted on the head of that author, who first instituted the 
method of prefixing to his play that portion of matter which 
is called the prologue ; and which at first was part of the 
piece itself, but of latter years hath had usually so little con- 
nexion with the drama before which it stands, that the pro- 10 
logue to one play might as well serve for any other. Those 
indeed of more modern date, seem all to be written on the 
same three topics, viz, an abuse of the taste of the town, a con- 
demnation of all contemporary authors, and an elogium on the 
performance just about to be represented. The sentiments in 15 
all these are very little varied, nor is it possible they should ; 
and indeed I have often wondered at the great invention of 
authors, who have been capable of finding such various phrases 
to express the same thing. 

In like manner I apprehend, some future historian (if any 20 
one shall do me the honour of imitating my manner) will, after 
much scratching his pate, bestow some good wishes on my 
memory, for having first established these several initial chap- 
ters ; most of which, like modern prologues, may as properly 



2 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

be prefixed to any other book in this history as to that which 
they introduce, or indeed to any other history as to this. 

But however authors may suffer by either of these inven- 
tions, the reader will find sufficient emolument in the one, as 
5 the spectator hath long found in the other. 

First, it is well known, that the prologue serves the critic 
for an opportunity to try his faculty of hissing, and to tune 
his cat-call to the best advantage; by which means, I have 
known those musical instruments so well prepared, that they 

lo have been able to play in full concert at the first rising of the 
curtain. 

The same advantages may be drawn from these chapters, in 
which the critic will be always sure of meeting with something 
that may serve as a whetstone to his noble spirit ; so that he 

15 may fall with a more hungry appetite for censure on the his- 
tory itself. And here his sagacity must make it needless to 
observe how artfully these chapters are calculated for that 
excellent purpose ; for in these we have always taken care 
to intersperse somewhat of the sour or acid kind, in order to 

20 sharpen and stimulate the said spirit of criticism. 

Again, the indolent reader, as well as spectator, finds great 
advantage from both these ; for as they are not obliged either 
to see the one or read the others, and both the play and the 
book are thus protracted, by the former they have a quarter 

25 of an hour longer allowed them to sit at dinner, and by the 
latter they have the advantage of beginning to read at the 
fourth or fifth page instead of the first ; a matter by no means 
of trivial consequence to persons who read books with no 
other view than to say they have read them, a more general 

30 motive to reading than is commonly imagined ; and from 
which not only law books, and good books, but the pages of 
Homer and Virgil^ of Swift and Cervantes have been often 
turned over. 



AN INVOCATION 3 

Many other are the emoluments which arise from both these, 
but they are for the most part so obvious that we shall not at 
present stay to enumerate them ; especially since it occurs to 
us that the principal merit of both the prologue and the preface 
is that they be short. 5 

II 
AN INVOCATION 

Come, bright love of fame, inspire my glowing breast: not 
thee I call, who, over swelling tides of blood and tears, dost 
bear the heroe on to glory, while sighs of millions waft his 
spreading sails ; but thee, fair, gentle maid, whom Mnesis^ 
happy nymph, first on the banks of Hebrus didst produce. 10 
Thee, whom Maeonia educated, whom Mantua charm'd, and 
who, on that fair hill which overlooks the proud metropolis of 
Britain, sat, with thy Milton^ sweetly tuning the heroic lyre ; 
fill my ravished fancy with the hopes of charming ages yet to 
come. Foretel me that some tender maid, whose grandmother 15 
is yet unborn, hereafter, when, under the fictitious name of 
Sophia^ she reads the real worth which once existed in my 
Charlotte, shall, from her sympathetic breast send forth the 
heaving sigh. Do thou teach me not only to foresee, but to 
enjoy, nay, even to feed on future praise. Comfort me by a 20 
solemn assurance that when the little parlour in which I sit at 
this instant, shall be reduced to a worse furnished box, I shall 
be read, with honour, by those who never knew nor saw me, 
and whom I shall neither know nor see. 

And thou, much plumper dame, whom no airy forms nor 25 
phantoms of imagination clothe : whom the well-seasoned 
beef, and pudding richly stained with plumbs, delight. Thee, 
I call ; of whom in a trachtchugt in some Dutch canal the fat 
ufrow gelt, impregnated by a jolly merchant of Amsterdam, 



4 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

was delivered : in G^'uds tree t-^ohool didst thou suck in the 
elements of thy erudition. Here hast thou, in thy maturer age, 
taught poetry to tickle not the fancy, but the pride of the 
patron. Comedy frorii thee learns a grave and solemn air ; 
5 while tragedy storms loud, and rends th' affrighted theatres 
with its thunder. To sooth thy wearied limbs in slumber, Alder- 
man History tells his tedious tale ; and again to awaken thee, 
Monsieur Romance performs his surprizing tricks of dexterity. 
Nor less thy well-fed book seller obeys thy influence. By thy 

10 advice the heavy, unread, folio lump, which long had dozed 
on the dusty shelf, piece-mealed into numbers, runs nimbly 
through the nation. Instructed by thee some books, like 
quacks, impose on the world by promising wonders ; while 
others turn beaus, and trust all their merits to a gilded outside. 

15 Come, thou jolly substance, with thy shining face, keep back 
thy inspiration, but hold forth thy tempting rewards ; thy shin- 
ing, chinking heap ; thy quickly- convertible bank-bill, big with 
unseen riches ; thy often- varying stock ; the warm, the com- 
fortable house; and, lastly, a fair portion of that bounteous 

20 mother, whose flowing breasts yield redundant sustenance for 
all her numerous offspring, did not some too greedily and 
wantonly drive their brethren from the teat. Come thou, and 
if I am too tasteless of thy valuable treasures, warm my heart 
with the transporting thought of conveying them to others. 

25 Tell me, that through thy bounty, the prattling babes, whose 
innocent play hath often been interrupted by my labours, may 
one time be amply rewarded for them. 

And now this ill-yoked pair, this lean shadow and this fat 
substance, have prompted me to write, whose assistance shall 

30 I invoke to direct my pen? 

First, genius; thou gift of heaven; without whose aid, in 
vain we struggle against the stream of nature. Thou, who dost 
sow the generous seeds which art nourishes, and brings to 



AN INVOCATION 5 

perfection. Do thou kindly take me by the hand, and lead 
me through all the mazes, the winding labyrinths of nature. 
Initiate me into all those mysteries which profane eyes never 
beheld. Teach me, which to thee is no difficult task, to know 
mankind better than they know themselves. Remove that mist 5 
which dims the intellects of mortals, and causes them to adore 
men for their art, or to detest them for their cunning in deceiv- 
ing others, when they are, in reality, the objects only of ridicule, 
for deceiving themselves. Strip off the thin disguise of wisdom 
from self-conceit, of plenty from avarice, and of glory from 10 
ambition. Come thou, that hast inspired thy Aristophanes^ thy 
Lucian, thy Cervantes^ thy Rabelais, thy Moliere, thy Shake- 
speare^ thy Swift, thy Marivaux, fill my pages with humour ; 
'till mankind learn the good-nature to laugh only at the follies 
of others, and the humility to grieve at their own. 15 

And thou, almost the constant attendant on true genius, 
humanity, bring all thy tender sensations. If thou hast already 
disposed of them all between thy Allen and thy Lyttleton, steal 
them a little while from their bosoms. Not without these the 
tender scene is painted. From these alone proceed the noble, 20 
disinterested friendship, the melting love, the generous senti- 
ment, the ardent gratitude, the soft compassion, the candid 
opinion ; and all those strong energies of a good mind, which 
fill the moistened eyes with tears, the glowing cheeks with blood, 
and swell the heart with tides of grief, joy and benevolence. 25 

And thou, O learning, (for without thy assistance nothing 
pure, nothing correct, can genius produce) do thou guide my 
pen. Thee, in thy favourite fields, where the limpid, gently- 
rolling Thames washes thy Etonian banks, in early youth I have 
worshipped. To thee, at thy birchen altar, with true Spartan 30 
devotion, I have sacrificed my blood. Come, then, and from 
thy vast, luxuriant stores, in long antiquity piled up, pour 
forth the rich profusion. Open thy Mseonian and thy Mantuan 



6 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

coffers, with whatever else includes thy philosophic, thy poetic, 
and thy historical treasures, whether with Greek or Roman 
characters thou hast chosen to inscribe the ponderous chests : 
give me a-while that key to all thy treasures, which to thy 
5 Warburton thou hast entrusted. 

Lastly, come experience long conversant with the wise, the 
good, the learned, and the polite. Nor with them only, but 
with every kind of character, from the minister at his levee, 
to the bailiff in his spunging-house ; from the dutchess at her 

lo drum, to the landlady behind her bar. From thee only can the 
manners of mankind be known ; to which the recluse pedant, 
however great his parts, or extensive his learning may be, hath 
ever been a stranger. 

Come all these, and more, if possible ; for arduous is the 

1 5 task I have undertaken : and without all your assistance, will, 
I find, be too heavy for me to support. But if you all smile on 
my labours, I hope still to bring them to a happy conclusion. 



Ill 
[THE BILL OF FARE TO THE FEAST] 

An author ought to consider himself, not as a gentleman 
who gives a private or eleemosynary treat, but rather as one 

2o who keeps a public ordinary, at which all persons are welcome 
for their money. In the former case, it is well known, that the 
entertainer provides what fare he pleases ; and tho' this should 
be very indifferent, and utterly disagreeable to the taste of his 
company, they must not find any fault ; nay, on the contrary, 

25 good-breeding forces them outwardly to approve and to com- 
mend whatever is set before them. Now the contrary of this 
happens to the master of an ordinary. Men who pay for 
what they eat, will insist on gratifying their palates, however 



THE BILL OF FARE TO THE FEAST / 

nice and whimsical these may prove ; and if every thing is not 
agreeable to their taste, will challenge a right to censure, to 
abuse, and to d — n their dinner without controul. 

To prevent therefore giving offence to their customers by 
any such disappointment, it has been usual, with the honest 5 
and well-meaning host, to provide a bill of fare, which all per- 
sons may peruse at their first entrance into the house ; and, 
having thence acquainted themselves with the entertainment 
which they may expect, may either stay and regale with what 
is provided for them, or may depart to some other ordinary 10 
better accommodated to their taste. 

As we do not disdain to borrow wit or wisdom from any man 
who is capable of lending us either, we have condescended to 
take a hint from these honest victuallers, and shall prefix not 
only a general bill of fare to our whole entertainment, but 15 
shall likewise give the reader particular bills to every course 
which is to be served up in this and the ensuing volumes. 

The provision then which we have here made is no other 
than Human Nature. Nor do I fear that my sensible reader, 
though most luxurious in his taste, will start, cavil, or be offended, 20 
because I have named but one article. The tortoise, as the 
alderman of Bristol, well learned in eating, knows by much 
experience, besides the delicious calibash and caHpee, contains 
many different kinds of food ; nor can the learned reader be 
ignorant, that in human nature^ tho' here collected under one 25 
general name, is such prodigious variety, that a cook will have 
sooner gone through all the several species of animal and vege- 
table food in the world, than an author will be able to exhaust 
so extensive a subject. 

An objection may perhaps be apprehended from the more 30 
delicate, that this dish is too common and vulgar; for what 
else is the subject of all the romances, novels, plays and poems, 
with which the stalls abound. Many exquisite viands might 



8 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

be rejected by the epicure, if it was a sufficient cause for his 
contemning of them as common and vulgar, that something was 
to be found in the most paultry alleys under the same name. In 
reality, true nature is as difficult to be met with in authors, as 
5 the Bayonne ham, or Bologna sausage is to be found in the shops. 
But the whole, to continue the same metaphor, consists in 
the cookery of the author ; for, as Mr. Pope tells us, — 

True wit is nature to advantage drest ; 

What oft' was thought, but ne'er so well exprest. 

lo The same animal which hath the honour to have some part 
of his flesh eaten at the table of a duke, may perhaps be 
degraded in another part, and some of his limbs gibbetted, as 
it were, in the vilest stall in town. Where then lies the dif- 
ference between the food of the nobleman and the porter, if 

1 5 both are at dinner on the same ox or calf, but in the seasoning, 

the dressing, the garnishing, and the setting forth. Hence the 

one provokes and incites the most languid appetite, and the 

other turns and palls that which is the sharpest and keenest. 

In like manner, the excellence of the mental entertainment 

20 consists less in the subject, than in the author's skill in well 
dressing it up. How pleased therefore will the reader be to 
find, that we have, in the following work, adhered closely 
to one of the highest principles of the best cook which the 
present age, or perhaps that of Heliogabalus^ hath produced. 

25 This great man, as is well known to all polite lovers of eating, 
begins at first by setting plain things before his hungry guests, 
rising afterwards by degrees, as their stomachs may be supposed 
to decrease, to the very quintessence of sauce and spices. In 
like manner, we shall represent human nature at first to the 

30 keen appetite of our reader, in that more plain and simple 
manner in which it is found in the country, and shall here- 
after hash and ragout it with all the high French and Itahan 



THE COMIC EPIC IN PROSE 9 

seasoning of affectation and vice which courts and cities afford. 
By these means, we doubt not but our reader may be rendered 
desirous to read on for ever, as the great person, just above 
mentioned, is supposed to have made some persons eat. 

Having premised thus much, we will now detain those, who 5 
like our bill of fare, no longer from their diet, and shall pro- 
ceed directly to serve up the first course, of our history, for 
their entertainment. 

IV 
[THE COMIC EPIC IN PROSE] 

As it is possible the mere English reader may have a dif- 
ferent idea of romance with the author of these little volumes ; 10 
and may consequently expect a kind of entertainment, not to . 
be found, nor which was even intended, in the following pages ; 
it may not be improper to premise a few words concerning this 
kind of writing, which I do not remember to have seen hitherto 
attempted in our language. 15 

The EPIC, as well as the DRAMA, is divided into tragedy 
and comedy. HOMER, who was the father of this species of 
poetry, gave us the pattern of both these, tho' that of the latter 
kind is entirely lost ; which Aristotle tells us, bore the same 
relation to comedy which his Iliad bears to tragedy. And per- 20 
haps, that we have no more instances of it among the writers 
of antiquity, is owing to the loss of this great pattern, which, 
had it survived, would have found its imitators equally with the 
other poems of this great original. 

And farther, as this poetry may be tragic or comic, I will 25 
not scruple to say it may be likewise either in verse or prose : 
for tho' it wants one particular, which the critic enumerates 
in the constituent parts of an epic poem, namely, metre ; yet, 
when any kind of writing contains all its other parts, such 



lO SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

as fable, action, characters, sentiments, and diction, and is 
deficient in metre only, it seems, I think, reasonable to refer 
it to the epic ; at least, as no critic hath thought proper to 
range it under any other head, nor to assign it a particular 
5 name to itself. 

Thus the Telemachus of the archbishop of Cambray appears 
to me of the epic kind, as well as the Odyssey of Homer ; 
indeed, it is much fairer and more reasonable to give it a 
name common with that species from which it differs only 

lo in a single instance, than to confound it with those which 
it resembles in no other. Such are those voluminous works, 
commonly called Romances, namely, Clelia, Cleopatra, Astraea, 
Cassandra, the Grand Cyrus, and innumerable others which 
contain, as I apprehend, very little instruction or entertainment. 

.15 Now, a comic romance is a comic epic-poem in prose; 
differing from comedy, as the serious epic from tragedy : its 
action being more extended and comprehensive ; containing 
a much larger circle of incidents, and introducing a greater 
variety of characters. It differs from the serious romance in 

20 its fable and action, in this ; that as in the one these are grave 
and solemn, so in the other they are light and ridiculous : 
it differs in its characters, by introducing persons of inferiour 
rank, and consequently of inferiour manners, whereas the 
grave romance sets the highest before us; lastly in its sen- 

25 timents and diction ; by preserving the ludicrous instead of 
the sublime. In the diction I think, burlesque itself may be 
sometimes admitted ; of which many instances will occur in 
this work, as in the description of the battles, and some other 
places not necessary to be pointed out to the classical reader ; 

30 for whose entertainment those parodies or burlesque imitations 
are chiefly calculated. 

But tho' we have sometimes admitted this in our diction, we 
have carefully excluded it from our sentiments and characters ; 



THE COMIC EPIC IN PROSE n 

for there it is never properly introduced, unless in writings of 
the burlesque kind, which this is not intended to be. Indeed, 
no two species of writing can differ more widely than the comic 
and the burlesque : for as the latter is ever the exhibition of 
what is monstrous and unnatural, and where our delight, if we 5 
examine it, arises from the surprizing absurdity, as in appro- 
priating the manners of the highest to the lowest, or e converse; 
so in the former, we should ever confine ourselves strictly to 
nature, from the just imitation of which, will flow all the pleas- 
ure we can this way convey to a sensible reader. And perhaps, 10 
there is one reason, why a comic writer should of all others be 
the least excused for deviating from nature, since it may not 
be always so easy for a serious poet to meet with the great 
and the admirable ; but life everywhere furnishes an accurate 
observer with the ridiculous. 15 

I have hinted this little, concerning burlesque ; because I 
have often heard that name given to performances, which have 
been truly of the comic kind, from the author's having some- 
times admitted it in his diction only ; which as it is the dress 
of poetry, doth like the dress of men establish characters, (the 20 
one of the whole poem, and the other of the whole man), in 
vulgar opinion, beyond any of their greater excellences : but 
surely, a certain drollery in style, where characters and senti- 
ments are perfectly natural, no more constitutes the burlesque, 
than an empty pomp and dignity of words, where everything 25 
else is mean and low, can entitle any performance to the 
appellation of the true sublime. 

And I apprehend, my Lord Shaftesbury's opinion of mere 
burlesque agrees with mine, when he asserts, ''There is no 
such thing to be found in the writings of the antients." But 30 
perhaps I have less abhorrence than he professes for it : and 
that not because I have had some little success on the stage 
this way ; but rather as it contributes more to exquisite mirth 



12 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

and laughter than any other; and these are probably more 
wholesome physic for the mind, and conduce better to purge 
away spleen, melancholy, and ill affections, than is generally 
imagined. Nay, I will appeal to common observation, whether 
5 the same companies are not found more full of good-humour 
and benevolence, after they have been sweetened for two or 
three hours with entertainments of this kind, than soured by a 
tragedy or a grave lecture. 

But to illustrate all this by another science, in which, per- 

lo haps, we shall see the distinction more clearly and plainly : 
let us examine the works of a comic history-painter, with those 
performances which the Italians call Caricatiira^ where we 
shall find the greatest excellence of the former to consist in 
the exactest copy of nature ; insomuch, that a judicious eye 

15 instantly rejects anything outre ; any liberty which the painter 
hath taken with the features of that alma mater. Whereas 
in the Caricatnra we allow all licence. Its aim is to exhibit 
monsters not men ; and all distortions and exaggerations what- 
ever are within its proper province. 

20 Now what Caricatura is in painting. Burlesque is in writing ; 
and in the same manner the comic writer and painter corre- 
late to each other. And here I shall observe, that as in the 
former, the painter seems to have the advantage ; so it is in 
the latter infinitely on the side of the writer : for the Mon- 

25 strous is much easier to paint than describe, and the Ridicu- 
lous to describe than paint. 

And tho' perhaps this latter species doth not in either 
science so strongly affect and agitate the muscles as the other ; 
yet it will be owned, I believe, that a more rational and use- 

30 ful pleasure arises to us from it. He who should call the 
ingenious Hogarth a burlesque painter, would, in my opinion, 
do him very little honour : for sure it is much easier, much 
less the subject of admiration, to paint a man with a nose, or 



THE COMIC EPIC IN PROSE 13 

any other feature of a preposterous size, or to expose him in 
some absurd or monstrous attitude, than to express the affec- 
tions of men on canvas. It hath been thought a vast commen- 
dation of a painter to say his figures seem to breathe ; but surely 
it is a much greater and nobler applause, that they appear to 5 
think. 

But to return. The Ridiculous only, as I have before said, 
falls within my province in the present work. Nor will some 
explanation of this word be thought impertinent by the reader, 
if he considers how wonderfully it hath been mistaken, even by 10 
writers who have profess'd it : for to what but such a mistake, 
can we attribute the many attempts to ridicule the blackest 
villanies ; and what is yet worse, the most dreadful calamities ? 
What could exceed the absurdity of an author, who should 
write the comedy of Nero, with the merry incident of ripping 15 
up his mother's belly ; or what would give a greater shock to 
humanity than an attempt to expose the miseries of poverty 
and distress to ridicule? And yet, the reader will not want 
much learning to suggest such instances to himself. 

Besides, it may seem remarkable, that Aristotle, who is so 20 
fond and free of definitions, hath not thought proper to define 
the Ridiculous. Indeed, where he tells us it is proper to 
comedy, he hath remarked that villany is not its object : but 
that he hath not, as I remember, positively asserted what is. 
Nor doth the Abbe Bellegarde, who hath written a treatise on 25 
this subject, tho' he shows us many species of it, once trace it 
to its fountain. 

The only source of the true Ridiculous (as it appears to me) 
is affectation. But tho' it arises from one spring only, when 
we consider the infinite streams into which this one branches, 30 
we shall presently cease to admire at the copious field it affords 
to an observer. Now affectation proceeds from one of these 
two causes ; vanity, or hypocrisy : for as vanity puts us on 



14 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

affecting false characters, in order to purchase applause ; so 
hypocrisy sets us on an endeavour to avoid censure by con- 
cealing our vices under an appearance of their opposite virtues. 
And tho' these two causes are often confounded, (for they 
5 require some distinguishing;) yet, as they proceed from very 
different motives, so they are as clearly distinct in their opera- 
tions : for indeed, the affectation which arises from vanity is 
nearer to truth than the other ; as it hath not that violent 
repugnancy of nature to struggle with, which that of the hypo- 

lo crite hath. It may be likewise noted, that affectation doth 
not imply an absolute negation of those qualities which are 
affected : and therefore, tho', when it proceeds from hypocrisy, 
it be nearly allied to deceit ; yet when it comes from vanity 
only, it partakes of the nature of ostentation : for instance, the 

15 affectation of liberality in a vain man, differs visibly from the 
same affectation in the avaricious ; for tho' the vain man is not 
what he would appear, or hath not the virtue he affects, to the 
degree he would be thought to have it ; yet it sits less awk- 
wardly on him than on the avaricious man, who is the very 

20 reverse of what he would seem to be. 

From the discovery of this affectation arises the Ridiculous 
— which always strikes the reader with surprize and pleasure ; 
and that in a higher and stronger degree when the affectation 
arises from hypocrisy, than when from vanity : for to discover 

25 any one to be the exact reverse of what he affects, is more 
surprizing, and consequently more ridiculous, than to find him 
a little deficient in the quality he desires the reputation of. I 
might observe that our Ben Johnson, who of all men understood 
the Ridiculous the best, hath chiefly used the hypocritical 

30 affectation. 

Now from affectation only, the misfortunes and calamities of 
life, or the imperfections of nature, may become the objects 
of ridicule. Surely he hath a very ill-framed mind, who can 



THE COMIC EPIC IN PROSE 15 

look on ugliness, infirmity, or poverty, as ridiculous in them- 
selves : nor do I believe any man living who meets a dirty 
fellow riding through the streets in a cart, is struck with an 
idea of the Ridiculous from it ; but if he should see the same 
figure descend from his coach and six, or bolt from his chair 5 
with his hat under his arm, he would then begin to laugh, and 
with justice. In the same manner, were we to enter a poor 
house and behold a wretched family shivering with cold and 
languishing with hunger, it would not incline us to laughter, 
(at least we must have very diabolical natures, if it would) : 10 
but should we discover there a grate, instead of coals, adorned 
with flowers, empty plate or china dishes on the side-board, or 
any other affectation of riches and finery either on their per- 
sons or in their furniture ; we might then indeed be excused, 
for ridiculing so fantastical an appearance. Much less are 15 
natural imperfections the object of derision : but when ugliness 
aims at the applause of beauty, or lameness endeavours to dis- 
play agility ; it is then that these unfortunate circumstances, 
which at first moved our compassion, tend only to raise our 
mirth. 20 

The poet carries this very far ; 

None are for being what they are in fatilt, 
Bnt for not being what they would be thought. 

Where if the metre would suffer the word Ridiculous to close 
the first line, the thought would be rather more. proper. Great 25 
vices are the proper objects of our detestation, smaller faults of 
our pity : but affectation appears to me the only true source 
of the Ridiculous. 

But perhaps it may be objected to me, that I have against 
my own rules introduced vices, and of a very black kind into 30 
this work. To this I shall answer : first, that it is very difficult 
to pursue a series of human actions and keep clear from them. 



l6 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

Secondly, that the vices to be found here, are rather the acci- 
dental consequences of some human frailty, or foible, than 
causes habitually existing in the mind. Thirdly, that they are 
never set forth as the objects of ridicule, but detestation. 
5 Fourthly, that they are never the principal figure at that time 
on the scene ; and lastly, they never produce the intended evil. 



V 

SHEWING WHAT KIND OF A HISTORY THIS IS; 
WHAT IT IS LIKE, AND WHAT IT IS NOT LIKE 

Tho' we have properly enough entitled this our work, a his- 
tory, and not a life ; nor an apology for a life, as is more in 
fashion ; yet we intend in it rather to pursue the method of 

lo those writers who profess to disclose the revolutions of coun- 
tries, than to imitate the painful and voluminous historian, who 
to preserve the regularity of his series, thinks himself obliged 
to fill up as much paper with the details of months and years 
in which nothing remarkable happened, as he employs upon 

15 those notable aeras when the greatest scenes have been trans- 
acted on the human stage. 

Such histories as these do, in reality, very much resemble a 
news-paper, which consists of just the same number of words, 
whether there be any news in it or not. They may likewise 

20 be compared to a stage-coach, which performs constantly the 
same course, empty as well as full. The writer, indeed, seems 
to think himself obliged to keep even pace with Time, whose 
amanuensis he is ; and, like his master, travels as slowly through 
centuries of monkish dulness, when the world seems to have 

25 been asleep, as through that bright and busy age so nobly dis- 
tinguished by the excellent Latin poet. — 



SHEWING WHAT KIND OF A HISTORY THIS IS 1/ 

^^ Ad confligendum venietttibus undique Poenisj 
Omnia cu7n belli trepido concussa tutnultu 
Horrida contre7tiuere sub altis cstheris auris : 
In dubioque fuit sub utroruni regna cadendum 
Omnibus hu7nanis esset^ terraque marique : " 5 

Of which, we wish we could give our reader a more adequate 
translation than that by Mr. Creech, 

" When dreadful Carthage frightened Rome with arms, 
And all the world was shook with fierce alarms ; 
Whilst undecided yet, which part should fall, lo 

Which nation rise the glorious lord of all." 

Now it is our purpose in the ensuing pages, to pursue a con- 
trary method. When any extraordinary scene presents itself 
(as we trust will often be the case) we shall spare no pains nor 
paper to 'open it at large to our reader; but if whole years 15 
should pass without producing any thing worthy his notice, we 
shall not be afraid of a chasm in our history; but shall hasten 
on to matters of consequence, and leave such periods of time 
totally unobserved. 

These are indeed to be considered as blanks in the grand 20 
lottery of Time. We therefore who are the registers of that lot- 
tery, shall imitate those sagacious persons who deal in that which 
is drawn at Guild-Hall and who never trouble the public with 
the many blanks they dispose of ; but when a great prize hap- 
pens to be drawn, the news-papers are presently filled with it, 25 
and the world is sure to be informed at whose office it was sold : 
indeed, commonly two or three different offices lay claim to 
the honour of having disposed of it ; by which I suppose the 
adventurers are given to understand that certain brokers are 
in the secrets of Fortune, and indeed of her cabinet-council. 30 

My reader then is not to be surprized, if in the course of this 
work, he shall find some chaptersvery short, and others altogether 



l8 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

as long ; some that contain only the time of a single day, and 
others that comprise years ; in a word, if my history sometimes 
seems to stand still, and sometimes to fly. For all which I 
shall not look on myself as accountable to any court of critical 
5 jurisdiction whatever : for as I am, in reality, the founder of a 
new province of writing, so I am at liberty to make what laws 
I please therein. And these laws, my readers, whom I consider 
as my subjects, are bound to beheve in and to obey; with 
which that they may readily and chearfully comply, I do hereby 

lo assure them that I shall principally regard their ease and advan- 
tage in all such institutions : for I do not, like a j^ire divino 
tyrant, imagine that they are my slaves or my commodity. I 
am, indeed, set over them for their own good only, and was 
created for their use, and not they for mine. Nor do I doubt, 

15 while I make their interest the great rule of my writings, they 
will unanimously concur in supporting my dignity, and in 
rendering me all the honour I shall deserve or desire. 



VI 
MATTER PREFATORY IN PRAISE OF BIOGRAPHY 

Notwithstanding the preference which may be vulgarly given 
to the authority of those romance-writers who entitle their books, 

20 the History of E?igland, the History of France, of Spain, &c. 
it is most certain that truth is only to be found in the works of 
those who celebrate the lives of great men, and are commonly 
called biographers, as the others should indeed be termed topog- 
raphers, or chorographers : words which might well mark the 

25 distinction between them ; it being the business of the latter 
chiefly to describe countries and cities, which, with the assist- 

. ance of maps, they do pretty justly, and may be depended upon : 
but as to the actions and characters of men, their writings 



I 



IN PRAISE OF BIOGRAPHY 19 

are not quite so authentic, of which there needs no other 
proof than those eternal contradictions, occurring between two 
topographers who undertake the history of the same country : 
for instance, between my Lord Clarendon and Mr. Whitlock, 
between Mr. E chard dixA Rapin, and many others ; where, facts 5 
being set forth in a different light, every reader believes as he 
pleases, and indeed the more judicious and suspicious very 
justly esteem the whole as no other than a romance, in which 
the writer hath indulged a happy and fertile invention. But 
tho' these widely differ in the narrative of facts ; some ascrib- 10 
ing victory to the one, and others to the other party : some 
representing the same man as a rogue, while others give him a 
great and honest character, yet all agree in the scene where the 
fact is supposed to have happened ; and where the person, who 
is both a rogue, and an honest man, lived. Now with us biog- 15 
raphers the case is different, the facts we deliver may be relied 
upon, tho' we often mistake the age and country wherein they 
happened : for tho' it may be worth the examination of critics, 
whether the shepherd Chrysosfom, who, as Cervantes informs 
us, died for love of the fair Marcella^ who hated him, was ever 20 
in Spain, will any one doubt but that such a silly fellow hath 
really existed? Is there in the world such a sceptic as to dis- 
believe the madness of Cardenio, the ^^Qx^idy oi Ferdinand, the 
impertinent curiosity of Anselmo, the weakness of Camilla, the 
irresolute friendship of Lothario ; tho' perhaps as to the time 25 
and place where those several persons lived, that good historian 
may be deplorably deficient : but the most known instance of 
this kind is in the true history of Gil' Bias, where the inimitable 
biographer hath made a notorious blunder in the country of 
Dr. Sangrado, who used his patients as a vintner doth his wine- 30 
vessels, by letting out their blood, and filling them up with water. 
Doth not every one, who is the least versed in physical history, 
know that Spain was not the country in which this doctor lived ? 



20 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

• 

The same writer hath likewise erred in the country of his arch- 
bishop, as well as that of those great personages whose under- 
standings were too sublime to taste anything but tragedy, and in 
many others. The same mistakes may likewise be observed in 
5 Scarron, the Arabian Nights, the History of Mai'ianne and Le 
Paisan Pai'venu, and perhaps some few other writers of this 
class, whom I have not read, or do not at present recollect ; for 
I would by no means be thought to comprehend those persons 
of surprizing genius, the authors of immense romances, or the 

lo modern novel and Atalantis writers ; who without any assistance 
from nature or history, record persons who never were, or will 
be, and facts which never did nor possibly can happen : whose 
heroes are of their own creation, and their brains the chaos 
whence all their materials are selected. Not that such writers 

1 5 deserve no honour ; so far otherwise, that perhaps they merit 
the highest : for what can be nobler than to be as an example 
of the wonderful extent of human genius. One may apply 
to them what Balzac says of Aristotle^ that they are a second 
nature ; for they have no communication with the first ; by 

20 which authors of an inferiour class, who cannot stand alone, are 
obliged to support themselves as with crutches ; but these of 
whom I am now speaking, seem to be possessed of those stilts, 
which the excellent Voltaire tells us in his letters carry the 
genius far off , but with an irregular pace. Indeed, far out of 

25 the sight of the reader. 

Beyond the realm of Chaos and old Night. 

But, to return to the former class, who are contented to 
copy nature, instead of forming originals from the confused 
heap" of matter in their own brains ; is not such a book as 
30 that which records the atchievements of the renowned Don 
Quixotte, more worthy the name of a history than even 
Mariana's : for whereas the latter is confined to a particular 



IN PRAISE OF BIOGRAPHY 21 

period of time, and to a particular nation ; the former is the 
history of the world in general, at least that part -which is ' 
polished by laws, arts, and sciences ; and of that from the 
time it was first polished to this day; nay and forwards, as 
long as it shall so remain. 5 

I shall now proceed to apply these observations to the work 
before us; for indeed I have set them down principally to 
obviate some constructions, which the good-nature of man- 
kind, who are always forward to see their friends' virtues 
recorded, may put to particular parts. I question not but 10 
several of my readers will know the lawyer in the stage-coach, 
the moment they hear his voice. It is likewise odds, but the 
wit and the prude meet with some of their acquaintance, as 
well as all the rest of my characters. To prevent therefore 
any such malicious applications, I declare here once for all, 15 
I describe not men, but manners ; not an individual, but a 
species. Perhaps it will be answered, Are not the characters 
then taken from life ? To which I answer in the affirmative ; 
nay, I believe I might aver, that I have writ little more than 
I have seen. The lawyer is not only alive, but hath been so 20 

these 4000 years, and I hope G will indulge his life as 

many yet to come. He hath not indeed confined himself to 
one profession, one religion, or one country ; but when the 
first mean selfish creature appeared on the human stage, who 
made self the centre of the whole creation ; would give him- 25 
self no pain, incur no danger, advance no money to assist, or 
preserve his fellow- creatures ; then was our lawyer born ; and 
whilst such a person as I have described, exists on earth, so 
long shall he remain upon it. It is therefore doing him little 
honour, to imagine he endeavours to mimick some little obscure 30 
fellow, because he happens to resemble him in one particular 
feature, or perhaps in his profession ; whereas his appearance 
in the world is calculated for much more general and noble 



22 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

purposes ; not to expose one pitiful wretch, to the small and 
contemptible circle of his acquaintance ; but to hold the glass 
to thousands in their closets, that they may contemplate their 
deformity, and endeavour to reduce it, and thus by suffering 
5 private mortification may avoid pubhc shame. This places 
the boundary between, and distinguishes the satirist from the 
libeller ; for the former privately corrects the fault for the 
benefit of the person, like a parent ; the latter publickly 
exposes the person himself, as an example to others, like an 
lo executioner. 

VII 

OF WRITING LIVES IN GENERAL, AND PARTICU- 
LARLY OF PAMELA; WITH A WORD BY THE 
BYE OF COLLEY GIBBER AND OTHERS 

It is a trite but true observation, that examples work more 
forcibly on the mind than precepts : and if this be just in 
what is odious and blameable, it is more strongly so in what 
is amiable and praise-worthy. Here emulation most effectually 

15 operates upon us, and inspires our imitation in an irresistible 
manner. A good man therefore is a standing lesson to all his 
acquaintance, and of far greater use in that narrow circle than 
a good book. 

But as it often happens that the best men are but little 

20 known, and consequently cannot extend the usefulness of 
their examples a great way; the writer may be called in 
aid to spread their history farther, and to present the ami- 
able pictures to those who have not the happiness of 
knowing the originals; and by communicating such valu- 

25 able patterns to the world, may perhaps do a more extensive 
service to mankind than the person whose life originally 
afforded the pattern. 



OF WRITING LIVES IN GENERAL 23 

In this light I have always regarded those biographers who 
have recorded the actions of great and worthy persons of both 
sexes. Not to mention those antient writers which of late days 
are little read, being written in obsolete, and as they are gen- 
erally thought, unintelligible languages ; such as PLUTARCH, 5 
NEPOS, and others which I heard of in my youth, our own 
language affords many of excellent use and instruction, finely 
calculated to sow the seeds of virtue in youth, and very easy 
to be comprehended by persons of moderate capacity. Such 
as the history oi John the Great, who, by his brave and heroic 10 
actions against men of large and athletic bodies, obtained 
the glorious appellation of the Giant-Killer ; that of an Earl 
of Warwick, whose Christian name was Giiy ; the lives of 
Argalus and Farthenia, and above all, the history of those 
seven worthy personages, the Champions of Christendom. In 15 
all these, delight is mixed with instruction, and the reader is 
almost as much improved as entertained. 

But I pass by these and many others, to mention two books 
lately published, which represent an admirable pattern of the 
amiable in either sex. The former of these, which deals in 20 
male-virtue, was written by the great person himself, who lived 
the life he hath recorded, and is by many thought to have 
lived such a life only in order to write it. The other is com- 
municated to us by an historian who borrows his lights, as the 
common* method is, from authentic papers and records. The 25 
reader, I believe, already conjectures, I mean the lives of 
Mr. Colley Cibber and of Mrs. Pamela A?idrews. How art- 
fully doth the former, by insinuating that he escaped being 
promoted to the highest stations in Church and State, teach 
us a contempt of worldly grandeur ! how strongly doth he incul- 30 
cate an absolute submission to our superiors ! Lastly, how 
completely doth he arm us against so uneasy, so wretched a 
passion as the fear of shame ; how clearly doth he expose 
the emptiness and vanity of that fantom, reputation ! 



24 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

What the female readers are taught by the memoirs of Mrs. 
Andrews^ is so well set forth in the excellent essays or letters pre- 
fixed to the second and subsequent editions of that work, that 
it would be here a needless repetition. The authentic history 
5 with which I now present the public, is an instance of the great 
good that book is likely to do, and of the prevalence of example 
which I have just observed : since it will appear that it was by 
keeping the excellent pattern of his sister's virtues before his 
eyes, that yii. Joseph Andrews was chiefly enabled to preserve 

lo his purity in the midst of such great temptations ; I shall only 
add, that this character of male-chastity, tho' doubtless as 
desirable, as becoming in one part of the human species, as in 
the other, is almost the only virtue which the great apologist 
hath not given himself for the sake of giving the example to 

15 his readers. 

VIII 
CONTAINING FIVE PAGES OF PAPER 

As truth distinguishes our writings from those idle romances 
which are filled with monsters, the productions, not of nature, 
but of distempered brains; and which have been therefore 
recommended by an eminent critic to the sole use of the 
20 pastry-cook : so, on the other hand, we would avoid any 
resemblance to that kind of history which a celebrated poet 
seems to think is no less calculated for the emolument of the 
brewer, as the reading it should be always attended with a 
tankard of good ale. 

25 While — history with her comrade ale, 

Sooths the sad series of her serious tale. 

For as this is the liquor of modern historians, nay, perhaps 
their Muse, if we may believe the opinion of Biitk?-, who 



CONTAINING FIVE PAGES OF PAPER 25 

attributes inspiration to ale, it ought likewise to be the pota- 
tion of their readers ; since every book ought to be read with 
the same spirit, and in the same manner, as it is writ. Thus 
the famous author of Hiirlothrmnbo told a learned bishop, 
that the reason his lordship could not taste the excellence of 5 
his piece, was, that he did not read it with a fiddle in his hand ; 
which instrument he himself had always had in his own, when 
he composed it. 

That our work, therefore, might be in no danger of being 
likened to the labours of these historians, we have taken every 10 
occasion of interspersing through the whole sundry similes, 
descriptions, and other kind of poetical embellishments. These 
are, indeed, designed to supply the place of the said ale, and 
to refresh the mind, whenever those slumbers which in a long 
work are apt to invade the reader as well as the writer, shall 15 
begin to creep upon him. Without interruptions of this kind, 
the best narrative of plain matter of fact must overpower every 
reader; for nothing but the everlasting watchfulness, which 
Homer hath ascribed only to Jove himself, can be proof against 
a news paper of many volumes. 20 

We shall leave to the reader to determine with what judg- 
ment we have chosen the several occasions for inserting those 
ornamental parts of our work. Surely it will be allowed that 
none could be more proper than the present ; where we are 
about to introduce a considerable character on the scene ; no 25 
less, indeed, than the heroine of this heroic, historical, prosaic 
poem. Here, therefore, we have thought proper to prepare the 
mind of the reader for her reception, by filling it with every 
pleasing image, which we can draw from the face of nature. 
And for this method we plead many precedents. First, this is 30 
an art well known to, and much practised by, our tragic poets ; 
who seldom fail to prepare their audience for the reception of 
their principal characters. Thus the heroe is always introduced 



26 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

with a flourish of drums and trumpets, in order to rouse a mar- 
tial spirit in the audience, and to accommodate their ears to 
bombast and fustian, which Mr. Lock's bUnd man would not 
have grossly erred in likening to the sound of a trumpet. 
5 Again, when lovers are coming forth, soft music often con- 
ducts them on the stage, either to sooth the audience with all 
the softness of the tender passion, or to lull and prepare them 
for that gentle slumber in which they will most probably be 
composed by the ensuing scene. 

lo And not only the poets, but the masters of these poets, the 
managers of playhouses, seem to be in this secret ; for, besides 
the aforesaid kettle drums, &c. which denote the heroe's ap- 
proach, he is generally ushered on the stage by a large troop 
of half a dozen scene-shifters ; and how necessary these are 

15 imagined to his appearance, may be concluded from the fol- 
lowing theatrical story. 

King Pyrrhus was at dinner at an alehouse bordering on the 
theatre, when he was summoned to go on the stage. The heroe, 
being unwilling to quit his shoulder of mutton, and as unwilling 

20 to draw on himself the indignation of Mr. Wiiks, (his brother 
manager) for making the audience wait, had bribed these his 
harbingers to be out of the way. While Mr. Wilks, therefore, 
was thundering out, "Where are the carpenters to walk on 
before King Pyrrhus, ^^ that monarch very quietly ate his mut- 

25 ton, and the audience, however impatient, were obliged to 
entertain themselves with music in his absence. 

To be plain, I much question whether the politician, who 
hath generally a good nose, hath not scented out somewhat of 
the utility of this practice. I am convinced that awful magis- 

30 trate my lord mayor contracts a good deal of that reverence 
which attends him through the year, by the several pageants 
which precede his pomp. Nay, I must confess, that even I 
myself, who am not remarkably liable to be captivated with 



. CONTAINING FIVE PAGES OF PAPER 27 

show, have yielded not a little to the impressions of much pre- 
ceding state. When I have seen a man strutting in a procession, 
after others whose business hath been only to walk before him, 
I have conceived a higher notion of his dignity, than I have 
felt on seeing him in a common situation. But there is one 5 
instance which comes exactly up to my purpose. This is the cus- 
tom of sending on a basket- woman, who is to precede the^pomp 
at a coronation, and to strew the stage with flowers, before the , 
great personages begin their procession. The antients would 
certainly have invoked the goddess Floj^a for this purpose, and 10 
it would have been no difficulty for their priests or politicians 
to have persuaded the people of the real presence of the deity, 
though a plain mortal had personated her, and performed her 
office. But we have no such design of imposing on our reader, 
and therefore those who object to the heathen theology, may, 15 
if they please, change our goddess into the above-mentioned 
basket-woman. Our intention, in short, is to introduce our 
heroine with the utmost solemnity in our power, with an eleva- 
tion of stile, and all other circumstances proper to raise the 
veneration of our reader. Indeed we would, for certain causes, 20 
advise those of our male readers who have any hearts, to read 
no farther, were we not well assured, that how amiable soever 
the picture of our heroine will appear, as it is really a copy 
from nature, many of our fair countrywomen will be found 
worthy to satisfy any passion, and to answer any idea of female 25 
perfection, which our pencil will be able to raise. 



28 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

IX 

OF THOSE WHO LAWFULLY MAY, AND OF THOSE 
WHO MAY NOT WRITE SUCH HISTORIES AS 
THIS 

Among other good uses for which I have thought proper to 
institute these several introductory chapters, I have considered 
them as a kind of mark or stamp, which may hereafter enable 
a very indifferent reader to distinguish, what is true and gen- 
5 nine in this historic kind of writing, from what is false and 
counterfeit. Indeed it seems likely that some such mark may 
shortly become necessary, since the favourable reception which 
two or three authors have lately procured for their works of this 
nature from the public, will probably serve as an encourage- 

lo ment to many others to undertake the like. Thus a swarm of 
foolish novels, and monstrous romances will be produced, either 
to the great impoverishing of booksellers, or to the great loss 
of time, and depravation of morals in the reader ; nay, often 
to the spreading of scandal and calumny, and to the prejudice 

15 of the characters of many worthy arid honest people. 

I question not but the ingenious author of the Spectator was 
principally induced to prefix Greek and Latin mottos to every 
paper from the same consideration of guarding against the pur- 
suit of those scribblers, who, having no talents of a writer but 

20 what is taught by the writing master, are yet nowise afraid nor 
ashamed to assume the same titles with the greatest genius, than 
their good brother in the fable was of braying in the lion's skin. 
By the device therefore of his motto, it became impracti- 
cable for any man to presume to imitate the Spectators, without 

25 understanding at least one sentence in the learned languages. 
In the same manner I have now secured myself from the imita- 
tion of those who are utterly incapable of any degree of reflec- 
tion, and whose learning is not equal to an essay. 



WHO MAY WRITE SUCH HISTORIES 29 

I would not be here understood to insinuate, that the 
greatest merit of such historical productions can ever lie in 
these introductory chapters; but, in fact, those parts which 
contain mere narrative only, afford much more encouragement 
to the pen of an imitator, than those which are composed of 5 
observation and reflection. Here I mean such imitators as 
Rowe was of Shakspear, or as Horace hints some of the 
Romans were of Cato, by bare feet and sour faces. 

To invent good stories, and to tell them well, are possibly 
very rare talents, and yet I have observed few persons who 10 
have scrupled to aim at both ; and if we examine the romances 
and novels with which the world abounds, I think we may 
fairly conclude, that most of the authors would not have 
attempted to shew their teeth (if the expression may be 
allowed me) in any other way of writing; nor could indeed 15 
have strung together a dozen sentences on any other subject 
whatever. Scribimiis indocti doctiq ; passim,^ may be more 
truly said of the historian and biographer, than of any other 
species of writing : for all the arts and sciences (even criticism 
itself) require some little degree of learning and knowledge. 20 
Poetry indeed may perhaps be thought an exception ; but then 
it demands numbers, or something like numbers ; whereas to 
the composition of novels and romances, nothing is necessary 
but paper, pens and ink, with the manual capacity of using 
them. This, I conceive, their productions shew to be the 25 
opinion of the authors themselves ; and this must be the 
opinion of their readers, if indeed there be any such. 

Hence we are to derive that universal contempt, which the 
world, who always denominate the whole from the majority, have 
cast on all historical writers, who do not draw their materials 30 

* Each desperate blockhead dares to write, 



Verse is the trade of every living wight. 

Francis. 



30 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

from records. And it is the apprehension of this contempt, 
that hath made us so cautiously avoid the term romance, a 
name \v.ith which we might otherwise have been well enough 
contented. Though as we have good authority for all our 
5 characters, no less indeed than Doomsday Book, or the vast 
authentic book of nature, as is elsewhere hinted, our labours 
have sufficient title to the name of history. Certainly they 
deserve some distinction from those works, which one of the 
wittiest of men regarded only as proceeding from a pruritus, 

lo or indeed rather from a looseness of the brain. 

But besides the dishonour which is thus cast on one of the 
most useful as well as entertaining of all kinds of writing, there 
is just reason to apprehend, that by encouraging such authors, 
we shall propagate much dishonour of another kind ; I mean 

15 to the characters of many good and valuable members of 
society : for the dullest writers, no more than the dullest com- 
panions, are always inoffensive. They have both enough of 
language to be indecent and abusive. And surely if the opinion 
just above cited be true, we cannot wonder, that works so nas- 

20 tily derived should be nasty themselves, or have a tendency to 
make others so. 

To prevent therefore for the future, such intemperate abuses 
of leisure, of letters, and of the liberty of the press, especially 
as the world seems at present to be more than usually threat- 

25 ened with them, I shall here venture to mention some qualifi- 
cations, every one of which are in a pretty high degree necessary 
to this order of historians. 

The first is genius, without a rich vein of which, no study, 
says Horace, can avail us. By genius I would understand that 

30 power, or rather those powers of the mind, which are capable 
of penetrating into all things within our reach and knowledge, 
and of distinguishing their essential differences. These are no 
other than invention and judgment; and they are both called 



WHO MAY WRITE SUCH HISTORIES 31 

by the collective name of genius, as they are of those gifts 
of nature which we bring with us into the world. Concerning 
each of which many seem to have fallen into very great errors : 
for by invention, I believe, is generally understood a creative 
faculty; which would indeed prove most romance writers to 5 
have the highest pretentions to it; whereas by invention is 
really meant no more, (and so the word signifies) than discov- 
ery, or finding out; or to explain it at large, a quick and 
sagacious penetration into the true essence of all the objects 
of our contemplation. This, I think, can rarely exist without 10 
the concomitancy of judgment : for how we can be said to 
have discovered the true essence of two things, without dis- 
cerning their difference, seems to me hard to conceive; now 
this last is the undisputed province of judgment, and yet some . 
few men of wit have agreed with all the dull fellows in the 15 
world, in representing these two to have been seldom or never 
the property of one and the same person. 

But tho' they should be so, they are not sufficient for our 
purpose without a good share of learning; for which I could 
again cite the authority of Horace^ and of many others, if any 20 
was necessary to prove that tools are of no service to a work- 
man, when they are not sharpened by art, or when he wants 
rules to direct him in his work, or hath no matter to work upon. 
All these uses are supplied by learning : for nature can only 
furnish us with capacity, or, as I have chosen to illustrate it, 25 
with the tools of our profession ; learning must fit them for 
use, must direct them in it; and lastly, must contribute part 
at least, of the materials. A competent knowledge of history 
and of the belles leftres, is here absolutely necessary ; and with- 
out this share of knowledge at least, to affect the character of 30 
a historian, is as vain as to endeat^our at building a house with- 
out timber or mortar, or brick or stone. Homer and Milton^ 
who, though they added the ornament of numbers to their 



32 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

works, were both historians of our order, and masters of all the 
learning of their times. 

Again, there is another sort of knowledge beyond the power 
of learning to bestow, and this is to be had by conversation. 
5 So necessary is this to the understanding the characters of 
men, that none are more ignorant of them than those learned 
pedants, whose lives have been entirely consumed in colleges, 
and among books : for however exquisitely human nature may 
have been described by writers, the true practical system can 

lo only be learnt in the world. Indeed the like happens in every 

other kind of knowledge. Neither physic, nor law, are to be 

practically known from books. Nay, the farmer, the planter, 

the gardener, must perfect by experience what he hath acquired 

. the rudiments of by reading. How accurately soever the 

15 ingenious Mr. Miller may have described the plant, he him- 
self would advise his disciple to see it in the garden. As we 
must perceive, that after the nicest strokes of a Shakespear^ 
or a Johnso7i, of a Wycherly, or an Otway, some touches of 
nature will escape the reader, which the judicious action of 

20 a Gap'ick, of a Cibder, or a Clive* can convey to him ; so on 
the real stage, the character shows himself in a stronger and 
bolder light, than he can be described. And if this be the case 
in those fine and nervous descriptions, which great authors 
themselves have taken from life, how much more strongly will 

25 it hold when the writer himself takes his lines not from nature, 
but from books ! Such characters are only the faint copy of a 
copy, and can have neither the justness nor spirit of an original. 

* There is a peculiar propriety in mentioning this great actor, and 
these two most justly celebrated actresses in this place; as they have 
all formed themselves on the study of nature only ; and not on the imi- 
tation of their predecessors. Hence they have been able to excel all 
who have gone before them; a degree of merit which the servile herd 
of imitators can never possibly arrive at. 



WHO MAY WRITE SUCH HISTORIES 33 

Now this conversation in our historian must be universal, 
that is, with all ranks and degrees of men : for the knowledge 
of what is called high-life, will not instruct him in low, nor, 
e co7iverso, will his being acquainted with the inferior part of 
mankind, teach him the manners of the superior. And though 5 
it may be thought that the knowledge of either may sufficiently 
enable [him] to describe at least that in which he hath been con- 
versant ; yet he will even here fall greatly short of perfection : 
for the follies of either rank do in reality illustrate each other. 
For instance, the affectation of high- life appears more glaring 10 
and ridiculous from the simplicity of the low; and again the 
rudeness and barbarity of this latter, strikes with much stronger 
ideas of absurdity, when contrasted with, and opposed to the 
politeness which controuls the former. Besides, to say the truth, . 
the manners of our historian will be improved by both these 15 
conversations : for in the one he will easily find examples of 
plainness, honesty, and sincerity ; in the other of refinement, 
elegance, and a liberality of spirit ; which last quality I myself 
have scarce ever seen in men of low birth and education. 

Nor will all the qualities I have hitherto given my historian 20 
avail him, unless he have what is generally meant by a good 
heart, and be capable of feeling. The author who will make 
me weep, says Horace, must first weep himself. In reality, 
no man can paint a distress well, which he doth not feel while 
he is painting it ; nor do I doubt, but that the most pathetic 25 
and affecting scenes have been writ with tears. In the same 
manner it is with the ridiculous. I am convinced I never make 
my reader laugh heartily, but where I have laughed before him, 
unless it should happen at any time, that instead of laughing 
with me, he should be inclined to laugh at me. Perhaps this 30 
may have been the case at some passages in this chapter, from 
which apprehension I will here put an end to it. 



34 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

X 

OF THE SERIOUS IN WRITING; AND FOR WHAT 
PURPOSE IT IS INTRODUCED 

Peradventure there may be no parts in this prodigious work 
which will give the reader less pleasure in the perusing, than 
those which have given the author the greatest pains in com- 
posing. Among these probably may be reckoned those initial 
5 essays which we have prefixed to the historical matter contained 
in every book ; and which we have determined to be essentially 
necessary to this kind of writing, of which we have set ourselves 
at the head. 

For this our determination we do not hold ourselves strictly 

lo bound to assign any reason ; it being abundantly sufficient 
that we have laid it down as a rule necessary to be observed in 
all prosai-comi-epic writing. Who ever demanded the reasons 
of that nice unity of time or place which is now established to 
be so essential to dramatick poetry? What critic hath ever 

r 5 been asked why a play may not contain two days as well as one, 
or why the audience (provided they travel like electors, without 
any expense) may not be wafted fifty miles as well as five ! 
Hath any commentator well accounted for the limitation which 
an antient critic hath set to the drama, which he will have 

2o contain neither more nor less than five acts ; or hath any one 
living attempted to explain, what the modern judges of our 
theatres mean by that word low; by which they have happily 
succeeded in banishing all humour from the stage, and have 
made the theatre as dull as a drawing-room? Upon all these 

25 occasions, the world seems to have embraced a maxim of our 
law, viz. cuicunq; in arte sua perito credenduin est : for it seems, 
perhaps, difficult to conceive that any one should have had 
enough of impudence, to lay down dogmatical rules in any art 



OF THE SERIOUS IN WRITING 35 

or science without the least foundation. In such cases, there- 
fore, we are apt to conclude there are sound and good reasons 
at the bottom, tho' we are unfortunately not able to see so far. 

Now, in reality, the world have paid too great a compliment 
to critics, and have imagined them men of much greater pro- 5 
fundity than they really are. From this complaisance, the critics 
have been emboldened to assume a dictatorial power, and have 
so far succeeded that they have now become the masters, and 
have the assurance to give laws to those authors, from whose 
predecessors they originally received them. The critic, rightly 10 
considered, is no more than the clerk, whose office it is to 
transcribe the rules and laws laid down by those great judges, 
whose vast strength of genius hath placed them in the light 
of legislators in the several sciences over which they presided. 
This office was all which the critics of old aspired to, nor did 15 
they ever dare to advance a sentence, without supporting it by 
the authority of the judge from whence it was borrowed. 

But in process of time, and in ages of ignorance, the clerk 
began to invade the power and assume the dignity of his mas- 
ter. The laws of writing were no longer founded on the prac- 20 
tice of the author, but on the dictates of the critic. The clerk 
became the legislator, and those very peremptorily gave laws, 
whose business it was, at first, only to transcribe them. Hence 
arose an obvious, and perhaps an unavoidable error : for these 
critics being men of shallow capacities, very easily mistook 25 
mere form for substance. They acted as a judge would, who 
should adhere to the lifeless letter of law, and reject the spirit. 
Little circumstances which were, perhaps, accidental in a great 
author, were, by these critics, considered to constitute his chief 
merit, and transmitted as essentials to be observed by all his 30 
successors. To these encroachments, time and ignorance, the 
two great supporters of imposture, gave authority; and thus, 
many rules for good writing have been established, which have 



36 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

not the least foundation in truth or nature ; and which com- 
monly serve for no other purpose than to curb and restrain 
genius, in the same manner; as it would have restrained the 
dancing-master, had the many excellent treatises on that art, 
5 laid it down as an essential rule, that every man must dance in 
chains. 

To avoid, therefore, all imputation of laying down a rule for 
posterity, founded only on the authority of ipse dixit; for which, 
to say the truth, we have not the profoundest veneration ; we 

lo shall here waive the privilege above contended for, and proceed 
to lay before the reader, the reasons which have induced us, 
to intersperse these several digressive essays, in the course of 
this work. 

And here we shall of necessity be led to open a new vein 

15 of knowledge, which, if it hath been discovered, hath not, to 
our remembrance, been wrought on by any antient or modern 
writer. This vein is no other than that of contrast, which runs 
through all the works of creation, and may probably have a 
large share in constituting in us the idea of all beauty, as well 

20 natural as artificial : for what demonstrates the beauty and 
excellence of any thing, but its reverse? Thus the beauty of 
day, and that of summer, is set off by the horrors of night and 
winter. And I believe, if it was possible for a man to have seen 
only the two former, he would have a very imperfect idea of 

25 their beauty. 

But to avoid too serious an air : can it be doubted, but that 
the finest woman in the world would lose all benefit of her 
charms, in the eyes of a man who had never seen one of 
another cast ? The ladies themselves seem so sensible of this, 

30 that they are all industrious to procure foils; nay, they will 
become foils to themselves ; for I have observed, (at Bath par- 
ticularly,) that they endeavour to appear as ugly as possible in 
the morning, in order to set off that beauty which they intend 



OF THE SERIOUS IN WRITING 37 

to shew you in the evening. Most artists have this secret in 
practice, tho' some, perhaps, have not much studied the theory. 
The jeweller knows that the finest brilHant requires a foil ; and 
the painter, by the contrast of his figures, often acquires great 
applause. 5 

A great genius among us, will illustrate this matter fully. I 
cannot, indeed, range him under any general head of common 
artists, as he hath a title to be placed among those 

Inventas^ qui vitam excoluere per artes. 

Who by invented arts have life improv'd. 10 

I mean here the inventor of that most exquisite entertainment, 
called the English pantomime. 

This entertainment consisted of two parts, which the inventor 
distinguished by the names of the serious and the comic. The 
serious exhibited a certain number of heathen gods and heroes, 1 5 
who were certainly the worst and dullest company into which 
an audience was ever introduced ; and (which was a secret 
known to few) were actually intended so to be, in order to 
contrast the comic part of the entertainment, and to display the 
tricks of Harlequin to the better advantage. This was, perhaps, 20 
no very civil use of such personages ; but the contrivance was, 
nevertheless, ingenious enough, and had its effect. And this 
will now plainly appear, if instead of serious and comic, we sup- 
ply the words duller and dullest; for the comic was certainly 
duller than anything before shewn on the stage, and could 25 
only be set off by that superlative degree of dulness, which 
composed the serious. So intolerably serious, indeed, were 
these gods and heroes, that Harlequin (tho' the English gentle- 
man of that name is not at all related to the French family, 
for he is of a much more serious disposition) was always wel- 30 
come on the stage, as he relieved the audience from worse 
company. 



38 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

Judicious writers have always practised this art of contrast, 
with great success. I have been surprised that Horace should 
cavil at this art in Homer; but indeed he contradicts himself 
in the very next line. 

5 Indignor quattdoque bonus dortnitat Homerus, 

Verum operi id in lo7igo fas est obripere soninum. 

1 grieve if e'er great Hoitier chance to sleep, 
Yet slumbers on long works have right to creep. 

For we are not here to understand, as, perhaps, some have, 
lo that an author actually falls asleep while he is writing. It is 
true that readers are too apt to be so overtaken ; but if the 
work was as long as any of O/d/nixon, the author himself is too 
well entertained to be subject to the least drowsiness. He is, 
as Mr. Pope observes, 

1 5 Sleepless hijnself to give his readers sleep. 

To say the truth, these soporific parts are so many scenes of 
serious artfully interwoven, in order to contrast and set off the 
rest ; and this is the true meaning of a late facetious writer, 
who told the public, that whenever he was dull, they might be 

20 assured there was a design in it. 

In this light then, or rather in this darkness, I would have the 
reader to consider these initial essays. And after this warning, 
if he shall be of opinion, that he can find enough of serious in 
other parts of this history, he may pass over these, in which 

25 we profess to be laboriously dull, and begin the following books, 
at the second chapter. 



INSTRUCTIONS TO CRITICS 39 

XI 

CONTAINING INSTRUCTIONS VERY NECESSARY 
TO BE PERUSED BY MODERN CRITICS 

Reader, it is impossible we should know what sort of person 
thou wilt be : for, perhaps, thou may'st be as learned in human 
nature as Shakespear himself was, and, perhaps, thou may'st 
be no wiser than some of his editors. Now lest this latter 
should be the case, we think proper, before we go any farther 5 
together, to give thee a few wholesome admonitions ; that thou 
may'st not as grossly misunderstand and misrepresent us, as 
some of the said editors have misunderstood and misrepre- 
sented their author. 

First, then, we warn thee not too hastily to condemn any of 10 
the incidents in this our history, as impertinent and foreign to 
our main design, because thou dost not immediately conceive 
in what manner such incident may conduce to that design. 
This work may, indeed, be considered as a great creation of 
our own ; and for a little reptile of a critic to presume to find 1 5 
fault with any of its parts, without knowing the manner in 
which the whole is connected, and before he comes to the final 
catastrophe, is a most presumptuous absurdity. The allusion 
and metaphor we have here made use of, we must acknowledge 
to be infinitely too great for our occasion, but there is, indeed, 20 
no other, which is at all adequate to express the difference 
between an author of the first rate, and a critic of the lowest. 

Another caution we would give thee, my good reptile, is, 
that thou dost not find out too near a resemblance between 
certain characters here introduced ; as for instance, between 25 
the landlady who appears in the seventh book, and her in the 
ninth. Thou art to know, friend, that there are certain char- 
acteristics, in which most individuals of every profession and 



40 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

occupation agree. To be able to preserve these characteristics, 
and at the same time to diversify their operations, is one talent 
of a good writer. Again, to mark the nice distinction between 
two persons actuated by the same vice or folly is another ; and 
5 as this last talent is found in very few writers, so is the true 
discernment of it found in as few readers ; though, I believe, 
the observation of this forms a very principal pleasure in those 
who are capable of the discovery : every person, for instance, 
can distinguish between Sir Epicure Mammon, and Sir Fopling 

10 Flutter ; but to note the difference between Sir Fopling Flutter 
and Sir Courtly Nice, requires a most exquisite judgment : for 
want of which, vulgar spectators of plays very often do great 
injustice in the theatre ; where I have sometimes known a 
poet in danger of being convicted as a thief, upon much worse 

15 evidence than the resemblance of hands hath been held to be 
in the law. In reality, I apprehend every amorous widow on 
the stage would run the hazard of being condemned as a ser- 
vile imitation of Dido, but that happily very few of our play- 
house critics understand enough of Latin to read Vii'gil. 

20 In the next place, we must admonish thee, my worthy 
friend, (for, perhaps, thy heart may be better than thy head) 
not to condemn a character as a bad one, because it is not 
perfectly a good one. If thou dost delight in these models of 
perfection, there are books enow written to gratify thy taste ; 

25 but as we have not, in the course of our conversation, ever 
happened to meet with any such person, we have not chosen 
to introduce any such here. To say the truth, I as little ques- 
tion whether mere man ever arrived at this consummate 
degree of excellence, as well as whether there hath ever 

30 existed a monster bad enough to verify that 

nulla "virtute redemptutn 



A vitiis — * 
* Whose vices are not allayed with a single virtue. 



INSTRUCTIONS TO CRITICS 41 

in Juvenal: nor do I, indeed, conceive the good purposes 
served by inserting characters of such angelic perfection, or 
such diabolical depravity, in any work of invention : since 
from contemplating either, the mind of man is more likely to 
be overwhelmed with sorrow and shame, than to draw any 5 
good uses from such patterns ; for in the former instance he 
may be both concerned and ashamed to see a pattern of 
excellence, in his nature, which he may reasonably despair of 
ever arriving at; and in contemplating the latter, he may be 
no less affected with those uneasy sensations, at seeing the 10 
nature, of which he is a partaker, degraded into so odious and 
detestable a creature. 

In fact, if there be enough of goodness in a character to 
engage the admiration and affection of a well-disposed mind, 
though there should appear some of those little blemishes, 15 
quas humana paruni cavit natura^ they will raise our compas- 
sion rather than our abhorrence. Indeed, nothing can be of 
more moral use than the imperfections which are seen in 
examples of this kind ; since such form a kind of surprize, 
more apt to affect and dwell upon our minds, than the faults 20 
of very vicious and wicked persons. The foibles and vices of 
men in whom there is great mixture of good, become more 
glaring objects, from the virtues which contrast them, and 
show their deformity; and when we find such vices attended 
with their evil consequence to our favourite characters, we are 25 
not only taught to shun them for our own sake, but to hate 
them for the mischiefs they have already brought on those we 
love. 

And now, my friend, having given you these few admoni- 
tions, we will, if you please, once more set forward with our 30 
history. 



42 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

XII 
A CRUST FOR THE CRITICS 

In our last initial chapter, we may be supposed to have 
treated that formidable set of men, who are called critics, with 
more freedom than becomes us ; since they exact, and indeed 
generally receive, great condescension from authors. We shall 
5 in this, therefore, give the reasons of our conduct to this 
august body ; and here we shall perhaps place them in a 
light, in which they have not hitherto been seen. 

This word critic is of Greek derivation, and signifies judg- 
ment. Hence I presume some persons who have not under- 

10 stood the original, and have seen the English translation of 
the primitive, have concluded that it meant judgment in the 
legal sense, in which it is frequently used as equivalent to 
condemnation. 

I am the rather inclined to be of that opinion, as the great- 

15 est number of critics hath of late years been found among 
the lawyers. Many of these gentlemen," from despair, perhaps, 
of ever rising to the bench in Westminster-hall, have placed 
themselves on the benches at the play house, where they have 
exerted their judicial capacity, and have given judgment, i.e. 

20 condemned without mercy. 

The gentlemen would perhaps be well enough pleased, if we 
were to leave them thus compared to one of the most impor- 
tant and honourable offices in the commonwealth, and if we 
intended to apply to their favour we would do so ; but as 

25 we design to deal very sincerely and plainly too with them, we 
must remind them of another officer of justice of a much 
lower rank ; to whom, as they not only pronounce, but 
execute their own judgment, they bear Hkewise some remote 
resemblance. 



A CRUST FOR THE CRITICS 43 

But in reality there is another light in which these modern 
critics may with great justice and propriety be seen; and 
this is that of a common slanderer. If a person who prys 
into the characters of others, with no other design but to 
discover their faults, and to publish them to the world, 5 
deserves the title of a slanderer of the reputation of men ; 
why should not a critic, who reads with the same malevolent 
view, be as properly styled the slanderer of the reputation 
of books? 

Vice hath not, I believe, a more abject slave ; society pro- 10 
duces not a more odious vermin ; nor can the devil receive a 
guest more worthy of him, nor possibly more welcome to him, 
than a slanderer. The world, I am afraid, regards not this 
monster with half the abhorrence which he deserves, and I am 
more afraid to assign the reason of this criminal lenity shown 15 
towards him ; yet it is certain that the thief looks innocent 
in the comparison ; nay, ^the murderer himself can seldom 
stand in competition with his guilt : for slander is a more 
cruel weapon than a sword, as the wounds which the former 
gives are always incurable. One method, indeed, there is 20 
of killing, and that the basest and most execrable of all, 
which bears an exact analogy to the vice here disclaimed 
against, and that is poison. A means of revenge so base, 
and yet so horrible, that it was once wisely distinguished by 
our laws from all other murders, in the peculiar severity of 25 
the punishment. 

Besides the dreadful mischiefs done by slander, and the 
baseness of the means by which this is effected, there are 
other circumstances that highly aggravate its atrocious quality : 
for it often proceeds from no provocation, and seldom promises 30 
itself any reward, unless some black and infernal mind may 
propose a reward in the thoughts of having procured the ruin 
and misery of another. 



44 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

Shakespear hath nobly touched this vice, when he says, 

Who steals my cash steals trash, V is somethmg, nothing; 
''Twas mine, "'tis his, and hath been slave, to thousands : 
But he that filches from, me my good name^ 
5 Robs me of that which not enriches him, 
But makes me poor indeed. 

With all this my good reader will doubtless agree ; but 
much of it will probably seem too severe, when applied to the 
slanderer of books. But let it here be considered, that both 

lo proceed from the same wicked disposition" of mind, and are 
alike void of the excuse of temptation. Nor shall we conclude 
the injury done this way to be very slight, when we consider a 
book as the author's offspring, and indeed as the child of his 
brain. 

1 5 The reader who hath suffered his muse to continue hitherto 
in a virgin state, can have but a very inadequate idea of this 
kind of paternal fondness. To such we may parody the tender 
exclamation of Macduff, Alas f thou hast written no book. 
But the author whose muse hath brought forth, will feel the 

2o pathetic strain, perhaps will accompany me with tears (espe- 
cially if his darling be already no more) while I mention the 
uneasiness with which the big muse bears about her burden, 
the painful labour with which she produces it, and lastly, the 
care, the fondness, with which the tender father nourishes his 

25 favourite, till it be brought to maturity, and produced into the 
" world. 

Nor is there any paternal fondness which seems less to 
savour of absolute instinct, and which may so well be recon- 
ciled to worldly wisdom as this. These children may most 

30 truly be called the riches of their father ; and many of them 
have with true filial piety fed their parent in his old age ; so 
that not only the affection, but the interest of the author riiay 



A CRUST FOR THE CRITICS 45 

be highly injured by these slanderers, whose poisonous breath 
brings his book to an untimely end. 

Lastly, the slander of a book is, in truth, the slander of the 
author : for, as no one can call another bastard, without calling 
the mother a whore, so neither can any one give the names of 5 
sad stuff, horrid nonsense, &c. to a book, without calling the 
author a blockhead ; which tho' in a moral sense it is a pref- 
erable appellation to that, of villain, is perhaps rather more 
injiirious to his worldly interest. 

Now however ludicrous all this may appear to some, others, 10 
I doubt not, will feel and acknowledge the truth of it; nay, 
may, perhaps, think I have not treated the subject with 
decent solemnity ; but surely a man may speak truth with a 
smiling countenance. In reality, to depreciate a book mali- 
ciously, or even wantonly, is at least a very ill-natured office ; 1 5 
and a morose snarling critic, may, I believe, be suspected to 
be a bad man. 

I will therefore endeavour in the remaining part of this chap- 
ter, to explain the marks of this character, and to shew what 
criticism I here intend to obviate : for I can never be under- 20 
stood, unless by the very persons here meant, to insinuate, 
that there are no proper judges of writing, or to endeavour 
to exclude from the commonwealth of literature any of those 
noble critics, to whose labours the learned world are so greatly 
indebted. Such were Aristotle^ Hoi-ace^ and Longinus among 25 
the ancients, Dacier and Bossu among the French, and some 
perhaps among us ; who have certainly been duly authorised 
to execute at least a judicial authority in foro literario. 

But without ascertaining all the proper qualifications of a 
critic, which I have touched on elsewhere, I think I may very 30 
boldly object to the censures of any one past upon works which 
he hath not himself read. Such censurers as these, whether 
they speak from their own guess or suspicion, or from the 



46 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

report and opinion of others, may properly be said to slander 
the reputation of the book they condemn. 

Such may likewise be suspected of deserving this character, 

who, without assigning any particular faults, condemn the whole 

5 in general defamatory terms ; such as vile, dull, da — d stuff, 

&c. and particularly by the use of the monosyllable low ; a 

word which becomes mouth of no critic who is not right 

HONOURABLE. 

Again, tho' there may be some faults justly assigned in the 
10 work, yet if those are not in the most essential parts, or if they 
are compensated by greater beauties, it will savour rather of 
the malice of a slanderer, than of the judgment of a true 
critic, to pass a severe sentence upon the whole, merely on 
account of some vicious part. This is directly contrary to the 
r5 sentiments of Horace. 

Verum ubi phn^a nitent i?i carmine nan ego paucis 
Offendor 7naculis, quas aut inciiria fudit, 
Aut hutnana panim cavit natura 

But where the beauties, more in number, shine, 
20 I am not angry, when a casual line 

(That with some trivial faults unequal flows) 
A careless hand, or human frailty shows. 

Mr. Francis. 

For as Martial says, aliter, non fit, avite, liber. No book 
can be otherwise composed. All beauty of character, as well 

25 as of countenance, and indeed of every thing human, is to be 
tried in this manner. Cruel indeed would it be if such a work 
as this history, which hath employed some thousands of hours 
in the composing, should be liable to be condemned, because 
some particular chapter, or perhaps chapters, may be obnox- 

30 ious to very just and sensible objections. And yet nothing 
is more common than the most rigorous sentence upon books 



CONCERNING THE MARVELLOUS 47 

supported by such objections, which if they were rightly taken 
(and that they are not always) do by no means go to the merit 
of the whole. In the theatre especially, a single expression 
which doth not coincide with the taste of the audience, or with 
any individual critic of that audience, is sure to be hissed; 5 
and one scene which should be disapproved, would hazard the 
whole piece. To write within such severe rules as these, is as 
impossible, as to live up to some splenetic opinions ; and if 
we judge according to the sentiments- of some critics, and of 
some Christians, no author will be saved in this world, and no 10 
man in the next. 

XIII 

A WONDERFUL LONG CHAPTER CONCERNING 
THE MARVELLOUS 

As we are now entering upon a book, in which the course 
of our history will oblige us to relate some matters of a more 
strange and surprizing kind than any which have hitherto 
occurred, it may not be amiss in the prolegomenous, or intro- 15 
ductory chapter, to say something of that species of writing 
which is called the marvellous. To this we shall, as well for 
the sake of ourselves, as of others, endeavour to set some cer- 
tain bounds; and indeed nothing can be more necessary, as 
criticks * of different complexions are here apt to run into very 20 
different extremes ; for while some are, with M. Daciei-, ready 
to allow, that the same thing which is impossible may be yet 
probable,! others have so little historic or poetic faith, that 
they believe nothing to be either possible or probable, the like 
to which hath not occurred to their own observation. 25 

* By this word here, and in most other parts of our work, we mean 
every reader in the world. 

t It is happy for M. Dacier that he was not an Irishman. 



48 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

First then, I think, it may very reasonably be required of 
every writer, that he keeps within the bounds of possibiHty ; 
and still remembers that what it is not possible for man to 
perform, it is scarce possible for man to believe he did per- 
5 form. This conviction, perhaps, gave birth to many stories of 
the antient heathen deities (for most of them are of poetical 
original). The poet, being desirous to indulge a wanton and 
extravagant imagination, took refuge in that power, of the 
extent of which his readers were no judges, or rather which 

10 they imagined to be infinite, and consequently they could not 
be shocked at any prodigies related of it. This hath been 
strongly urged in defence of Homer's miracles ; and it is, per- 
haps, a defence ; not, as Mr. Pope would have it, because 
Ulysses told a set of foolish lies to the PhcBacians, who were 

15 a very dull nation; but because the poet himself wrote to 
Heathens, to whom poetical fables were articles of faith. For 
my own part, I must confess, so compassionate is my temper, 
I wish Polypheme had confined himself to his milk diet, and 
preserved his eye ; nor could Ulysses be much more concerned 

20 than myself, when his companions were turned into swine by 
C/r<r^, who shewed, I think, afterwards, too much regard for man's 
flesh to be supposed capable of converting it into bacon. I 
wish, likewise, with all my heart, that Homer could have known 
the rule prescribed by Hoi^ace to introduce supernatural agents 

25 as seldom as possible. We should not then have seen his gods 
coming on trivial errands, and often behaving themselves so 
as not only to forfeit all title to respect, but to become the 
objects of scorn and derision. A conduct which must have 
shocked the credulity of a pious and sagacious Heathen ; and 

30 which could never have been defended, unless by agreeing with 
a supposition to which I have been sometimes almost inclined, 
that this most glorious poet, as he certainly was, had an intent 
to burlesque the superstitious faith of his own age and country. 



CONCERNING THE MARVELLOUS 49 

But I have rested too long on a doctrine which can be of 
no use to a Christian writer : for as he cannot introduce into 
his works any of that heavenly host which make a part of his 
creed ; so is it horrid puerility to search the heathen theology 
for any of those deities who have been long since dethroned 5 
from their immortality. Lord Shaftesbury observes, that nothing 
is more cold than the invocation of a muse by a modern ; he 
might have added that nothing can be more absurd. A mod- 
ern may with much more elegance invoke a ballad, as some 
have thought Homer did, or a mug of ale with the author of 10 
Hudibras ; which latter may perhaps have inspired much more 
poetry as well as prose, than all the liquors of Hippocrene or 
Helicon. 

The only supernatural agents which can in any manner be 
allowed to us moderns are ghosts ; but of these I would advise 15 
an author to be extremely sparing. These are indeed like 
arsenic, and other dangerous drugs in physic, to be used with 
the utmost caution ; nor would I advise the introduction of 
them at all in those works, or by those authors to which, or 
to whom a horse-laugh in the reader, would be any great 20 
prejudice or mortification. 

As for elves and fairies, and other such mummery, I pur- 
posely omit the mention of them, as I should be very unwilling 
to confine within any bounds those surprizing imaginations, 
for whose vast capacity the limits of human nature are too 25 
narrow ; whose works are to be considered as a new creation ; 
and who have consequently just right to do what they will 
with their own. 

Man therefore is the highest subject (unless on very extraor- 
dinary occasions indeed) which presents itself to the pen of 30 
our historian, or of our poet ; and, in relating his actions, great 
care is to be taken, that we do not exceed the capacity of the 
agent we describe. 



50 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

Nor is possibility alone sufficient to justify us, we must keep 
likewise within the rules of probability. It is, I think, the 
opinion of Aristotle ; or if not, it is the opinion of some wise 
man, whose authority will be as weighty when it is as old ; 
5 " that it is no excuse for a poet who relates what is incredible, 
that the thing related is really matter of fact." This may per- 
haps be allowed true with regard to poetry, but it may be 
thought impracticable to extend it to the historian : for he 
is obliged to record matters as he finds them ; though they 

lo may be of so extraordinary a nature, as will require no small 
degree of historical faith to swallow them. Such was the suc- 
cessless armament of Xerxes, described by Hei-odotus, or the 
successful expedition of Alexander related by Arrian. Such 
of later years was the victory of Agincourt obtained by Har7'y 

15 the Fifth, or that oi Narva, won by Charles the Twelfth of 
Sweden. All which instances, the more we reflect on them, 
appear still the more astonishing. 

Such facts, however, as they occur in the thread of the story ; 
nay, indeed, as they constitute the essential parts of it, the his- 

20 torian is not only justifiable in recording as they really hap- 
pened ; but indeed would be unpardonable, should he omit or 
alter them. But there are other facts not of such consequence 
nor so necessary, which tho' ever so well attested, may never- 
theless be sacrificed to oblivion in complaisance to the scepticism 

25 of a reader. Such is that memorable story of the ghost of 
George Villiers, which might with more propriety have been 
made a present of to Dr. Drelincoiirt, to have kept the ghost 
of Mrs. Veale company, at the head of his Discourse upon 
Death, than have been introduced into so solemn a work as 

30 the History of the Rebellion. 

To say the truth, if the historian will confine himself to what 
really happened, and utterly reject any circumstance, which, 
tho' never so well attested, he must be well assured is false, 



CONCERNING THE MARVELLOUS 51 

he will sometimes fall into the marvellous, but never into the 
incredible. He will often raise the wonder and surprize of his 
reader, but never that incredulous hatred mentioned by Horace. 
It is by falling into fiction therefore, that we generally offend 
against this rule, of deserting probability, which the historian 5 
seldom if ever quits, till he forsakes his character, and com- 
mences a writer of romance. In this, however, those histori- 
ans, who relate publick transactions, have the advantage of us 
who confine ourselves to scenes of private life. The credit of 
the former is by common notoriety supported for a long time ; 10 
and public records, with the concurrent testimony of many 
authors bear evidence to their truth in future ages. Thus a 
Trajan and an Antoninus, a Nero and a Caligula, have all 
met with the belief of posterity ; and no one doubts but that 
men so very good, and so very bad, were once the masters of 15 
mankind. 

But we who deal in private characters, who search into the 
most retired recesses, and draw forth examples of virtue and 
vice, from holes and corners of the world, are in a more danger- 
ous situation. As we have no pubHc notoriety, no concurrent 20 
testimony, no records to support and corroborate what we 
deHver, it becomes us not only to keep within the limits of 
possibiHty, but of probability too ; and this more especially in 
painting what is greatly good and amiable. Knavery and folly, 
though never so exorbitant, will more easily meet with assent : 25 
for ill-nature adds great support and strength to faith. 

Thus we may, perhaps, with little danger, relate the history 
of a Fisher ; who having long owed his bread to the generosity 
of Mr. Derby, and having one morning received a consider- 
able bounty from his hands, in order to possess himself of what 30 
remained in his friend's scrutoire, concealed' himself in a pub- 
lic office of the Temple, through which there was a passage 
into Mr. Derby's chambers. Here he overheard Mr. Derby for 



52 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

many hours solacing himself at an entertainment which he that 
evening gave his friends, and to which Fisher had been invited. 
During all this time, no tender, no grateful reflections arose to 
restrain his purpose; but when the poor gentleman had let his 

5 company out through the office, Fisher came suddenly from 
his lurking-place, and walking softly behind his friend into his 
chamber, discharged a pistol-ball into his head. This may be 
believed, when the bones of Fisher are as rotten as his heart. 
Nay, perhaps, it will be credited, that the villain went two days 

lo afterwards with some young ladies to the play of Hamlet ; and 
with an unaltered countenance heard one of the ladies, who 
little suspected how near she was to the person, cry out, Good 
God ! if the man that murdered Mr. Derby was now present ! 
Manifesting in this a more seared and callous conscience than 

15 even Nero himself; of whom we are told by Suetonius^ " that 
the consciousness of his guilt after the death of his mother 
became immediately intolerable, and so continued; nor could 
all the congratulations of the soldiers, of the senate, and the 
people, allay the horrors of his conscience." 

20 But now, on the other hand, should I tell my reader, that I 
had known a man whose penetrating genius had enabled him 
to raise a large fortune in a way where no beginning was 
chaulked out to him : that he had done this with the most 
perfect preservation of his integrity, and not only without the 

25 least injustice or injury to any one individual person, but with 
the highest advantage to trade, and a vast increase of the pub- 
lic revenue : that he had expended one part of the income of 
this fortune in discovering a taste superior to most, by works 
where the highest dignity was united with the purest simplicity, 

30 and another part in displaying a degree of goodness superior 
to all men, by acts of charity to objects whose only recommen- 
dations were their merits, or their wants : that he was most 
industrious in searching after merit in distress, most eager to 
relieve it, and then as careful (perhaps too careful) to conceal 



CONCERNING THE MARVELLOUS 53 

what he had done : that his house, his furniture, his gardens, 
his table, his private hospitahty, and his pubHc beneficence all 
denoted the mind from which they flowed, and were all intrin- 
sically rich and noble, without tinsel, or external ostentation : 
that he filled every relation in life with the most adequate 5 
virtue : that he was most piously religious to his Creator, most 
zealously loyal to his sovereign; a most tender husband to his 
wife, a kind relation, a munificent patron, a warm and firm 
friend, a knowing and a cheerful companion, indulgent to his 
servants, hospitable to his neighbours, charitable to the poor, 10 
and benevolent to all mankind. Should I add to these the epi- 
thets of wise, brave, elegant, and indeed every other amiable 
epithet in our language, I might surely say, 

Quis credit? nemo Her cule ! nemoj 



Vel dtco, vel nejno. ic 

And yet I know a man who is all I have here described. But 
a single instance (and I really know not such another) is not 
sufficient to justify us, while we are writing to thousands who 
never heard of the person, nor of any thing like him. Such 
rarcB aves should be remitted to the epitaph-writer, or to some 20 
poet, who may condescend to hitch him in a distich, or to slide 
him into a rhime with an air of carelessness and neglect, with- 
out giving any offence to the reader. 

In the last place, the actions should be such as may not only 
be within the compass of human agency, and which human 25 
agents may probably be supposed to do ; but they should be 
likely for the very actors and characters themselves to have 
performed : for what may be only wonderful and surprizing in 
one man, may become improbable, or indeed impossible, when 
related of another. 30 

This last requisite is what the dramatic critics call conser- 
vation of character, and it requires a very extraordinary degree 
of judgment, and a most exact knowledge of human nature. 



54 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

It is admirably remarked by a most excellent writer, that 
zeal can no more hurry a man to act in direct opposition to 
itself, than a rapid stream can carry a boat against its own 
current. I will venture to say, that for a man to act in direct 

5 contradiction to the dictates of nature, is, if not impossible, 
as improbable and as miraculous as any thing which can well 
be conceived. Should the best parts of the story of M. Anto- 
ninus be ascribed to Nero, or should the worst incidents of 
Nero^s life be imputed to Afttoninus, what would be more 

lo shocking to belief than either instance ; whereas both these 
being related of their proper agent, constitute the truly 
marvellous. 

Our modern authors of comedy have fallen almost univer- 
sally into the error here hinted at : their heroes generally are 

15 notorious rogues, and their heroines abandoned jades, during 
the first four acts ; but in the fifth, the former become very 
worthy gentlemen, and the latter, women of virtue and dis- 
cretion : nor is the writer often so kind as to give himself 
the least trouble, to reconcile or account for this monstrous 

20 change and incongruity. There is, indeed, no other reason to 
be assigned for it, than because the play is drawing to a con- 
clusion ; as if it was no less natural in a rogue to repent in 
the last act of a play, than in the last of his life ; which we 
perceive to be generally the case at Tyburn, a place which 

25 might, indeed, close the scene of some comedies with much 

propriety, as the heroes in these are most commonly eminent 

for those very talents which not only bring men to the gallows, 

but enable them to make an heroic figure when they are there. 

Within these few restrictions, I think, every writer may be 

30 permitted to deal as much in the wonderful as he pleases; 
nay, the more he can surprize the reader, if he thus keeps 
within the rules of credibility, the more he will engage his 
attention, and the more he will charm him. As a genius of 



PLAGIARISM IN A MODERN AUTHOR 55 

the highest rank observes in his 5th chapter of the Bathos, 
" The great art of all poetry is to mix truth with fiction ; in • 
order to join the credible with the surprizing." 

For though every good author will confine himself within 
the bounds of probability, it is by no means necessary that his 5 
characters, or his incidents, should be trite, common, or vul- 
gar ; such as happen in every street, or in every house, or 
which may be met with in the home articles of a news-paper. 
Nor must he be inhibited from shewing many persons and 
things, which may possibly have never fallen within the knowl- 10 
edge of great part of his readers. If the writer strictly 
observes the rules above-mentioned, he hath discharged his 
part ; and is then intitled to some faith from his reader, who 
is indeed guilty of critical infidelity if he disbelieves him. For 
want of a portion of such faith, I remember the character of a 15 
young lady of quality, which was condemned on the stage for 
being unnatural, by the unanimous voice of a very large assem- 
bly of clerks and apprentices ; tho' it had the previous suf- 
frages of many ladies of the first rank ; one of whom very 
eminent for her understanding, declared it was the picture of 20 
half the young people of her acquaintance. 

XIV 

SHEWING WHAT IS TO BE DEEMED PLAGIARISM 
IN A MODERN AUTHOR AND ' WHAT IS TO 
BE CONSIDERED AS LAWFUL PRIZE 

The learned reader must have observed, that in the course 
of this mighty work, I have often translated passages out of 
the best antient authors, without quoting the original, or with- 
out taking the least notice of the book from whence they were 25 
borrowed. 



56 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

This conduct in writing is placed in a very proper light by 
the ingenious Abbe Bannier, in his Preface to his Mythology, 
a work of great erudition, and of equal judgment. " It will be 
easy," says he, " for the reader to observe, that I have fre- 

5 quently had greater regard to him, than to my own reputation : 
for an author certainly pays him a considerable compliment, 
when, for his sake, he suppresses learned quotations that come 
in his way, and which would have cost him but the bare trouble 
of translating." 

lo To fill up a work with these scraps may indeed be consid- 
ered as a downright cheat upon the learned world, who are by 
such means imposed upon to buy a second time in fragments 
and by retail what they have already in gross, if not in their 
memories, upon their shelves ; and it is still more cruel upon 

15 the illiterate, who are drawn in to pay for what is of no man- 
ner of use to them. A writer who intermixes great quantity of 
Greek and Latin with his works, deals by the ladies and fine 
gentlemen in the same paultry manner with which they are 
treated by the auctioneers, who often endeavour so to con- 

20 found and mix up their lots, that, in order to purchase what 
you want, you are obliged at the same time to purchase that 
which will do you no service. 

And yet as there is no conduct so fair and disinterested, but 
that it may be misunderstood by ignorance, and misrepresented 

25 by malice, I have been sometimes tempted to preserve my own 
reputation, at the expense of my reader, and to transcribe the 
original, or at least to quote chapter and verse, whenever 1 
have made use either of the thought or expression of another. 
I am indeed in some doubt that I have often suffered by the 

30 contrary method ; and that by suppressing the original author's 
name, I have been rather suspected of plagiarism, than reputed 
to act from the amiable motive above-assigned by that justly 
celebrated Frenchman. 



PLAGIARISM IN A MODERN AUTHOR 57 

Now to obviate all such imputations for the future, I do 
here confess and justify the fact. The antients may be con- 
sidered as a rich common, where every person who hath the 
smallest tenement in Parnassus hath a free right to fatten his 
muse. Or, to place it in a clearer light, we moderns are to 5 
the antients what the poor are to the rich. By the poor here 
I mean, that large and venerable body which, in Enghsh, 
we call the mob. Now, whoever hath had the honour to be 
admitted to any degree of intimacy with this mob, must well 
know that it is one of their established maxims, to plunder 10 
and pillage their rich neighbours without any reluctance ; and 
that this is held to be neither sin nor crime among them. 
And so constantly do they abide and act by this maxim, that 
in every parish almost in the kingdom, there is a kind of con- 
federacy ever carrying on against a certain person of opulence 1 5 
called the squire, whose property is considered as free-booty 
by all his poor neighbours; who, as they conclude that there 
is no manner of guilt in such depredations, look upon it as a 
point of honour and moral obligation to conceal, and to pre- 
serve each other from punishment on all such occasions. 20 

In like manner are the ancients, such as Homer^ Virgil.^ 
Horace, Cicero, and the rest, to be esteemed among us writ- 
ers, as so many wealthy squires, from whom we, the poor of 
Parnassus, claim an immemorial custom of taking whatever we 
can come at. This liberty I demand, and this I am as ready 25 
to allow again to my poor neighbours in their turn. All I pro- 
fess, and all I require from my brethren, is to maintain the 
same strict honesty among ourselves, which the mob shew to 
one another. To steal from one another, is indeed highly crim- 
inal and indecent ; for this may be strictly styled defrauding 30 
the poor (sometimes perhaps those who are poorer than our- 
selves) or, to see it under the most opprobrious colours, rob- 
bing the spittal. 



58 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

Since therefore upon the strictest examination, my own con- 
science cannot lay any such pitiful theft to my charge, I am 
contented to plead guilty to the former accusation ; nor shall I 
ever scruple to take to my self any passage which I shall find 
5 in an ancient author to my purpose, without setting down the 
name of the author from whence it was taken. Nay, I abso- 
lutely claim a property in all such sentiments the moment 
they are transcribed into my writings, and I expect all readers 
henceforwards to regard them as purely and entirely my own. 

lo This claim however I desire to be allowed me only on condi- 
tion, that I preserve strict honesty towards my poor brethren, 
from whom if ever I borrow any of that little of which they 
are possessed, I shall never fail to put their mark upon it, 
that it may be at all times ready to be restored to the right 

f5 owner. 

The omission of this was highly blameable in one Mr. 
Moore, who having formerly borrowed some lines of Pope and 
company, took the liberty to transcribe six of them into his 
play of the Rival Modes. Mr. Pope however very luckily 

20 found them in the said play, and laying violent hands on his 
own property, transferred it back again into his own works ; 
and for a further punishment, imprisoned the said Moore in 

■ the loathsome dungeon of the Diinciad, where his unhappy 
memory now remains, and eternally will remain, as a proper 

25 punishment for such his unjust dealings in the poetical trade. 



AN ESSAY 59 

XV 

AN ESSAY TO PROVE THAT AN AUTHOR WILL 
WRITE BETTER, FOR HAVING SOME KNOWLEDGE 
OF THE SUBJECT ON WHICH HE WRITES 

As several gentlemen in these times, by the wonderful force 
of genius only, without the least assistance of learning, perhaps, 
without being well able to read, have made a considerable fig- 
ure in the republic of letters ; the modern critics, I am told, 
have lately begun to assert, that all kind of learning is entirely 5 
useless to a writer ; and, indeed, no other than a kind of fetters 
on the natural spriteliness and activity of the imagination, 
which is thus weighed down, and prevented from soaring to 
those high flights which otherwise it would be able to reach. 

This doctrine, I am afraid, is, at present, carried much too 10 
far : for why should writing differ so much from all other arts ? 
The nimbleness of a dancing-master is not at all prejudiced by 
being taught to move ; nor doth any mechanic, I believe, exer- 
cise his tools the worse for knowing how to use them. For 
my own part, I cannot conceive that Ho77ier or Virgil would 1 5 
have writ with more fire, if, instead of being masters of all the 
learning of their times, they had been as ignorant as most of 
the authors of the present age. Nor do I believe that all the 
imagination, fire, and judgment of Pitt could have produced 
those orations that have made the senate of England in these 20 
our times a rival in eloquence to Greece and Rome, if he had 
not been so well read in the writings of Demosthenes and 
Cicero, as to have transfused their whole spirit into his 
speeches, and with their spirit, their knowledge too. 

I would not here be understood to insist on the same fund 25 
of learning in any of my brethren, as Cicero perswades us is 
necessary to the composition of an orator. On the contrary, 



6o SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

very little reading is, I conceive, necessary to the poet, less to 
the critic, and the least of all to the politician. For the first, 
perhaps, Bysse's Art of Poetry, and a few of our modern poets, 
may suffice ; for the second, a moderate heap of plays ; and 
5 for the last, an indifferent collection of political journals. 

To say the truth, I require no more than that a man should 
have some little knowledge of the subject on which he treats, 
according to the old maxim of law, Quam quisque norit artei7i 
in ed se exerceat. With this alone a writer may sometimes do 

lo tolerably well; and indeed without this, all the other learning 
in the world will stand him in little stead. 

For instance, let us suppose that Homer and Virgil, Aris- 
totle and Cicej'o, Thucydides and Livy, could have met all 
together, and have clubbed their several talents to have com- 

15 posed a treatise on the art of dancing; I believe it will be 
readily agreed they could not have equalled the excellent 
treatise which Mr. Essex hath given us on that subject, 
entitled. The Rudiments of genteel Education. And, indeed, 
should the excellent Mr. Broughto7i be prevailed on to set fist 

20 to paper, and to complete the abovesaid rudiments, by deliver- 
ing down the true principles of athletics, I question whether 
the world will have any cause to lament, that none of the 
great writers, either ancient or modern, have ever treated 
about that noble and useful art. 

25 To avoid a multiplicity of examples in so plain a case, and 
to come at once to my point, I am apt to conceive, that one 
reason why many English writers have totally failed in describ- 
ing the manners of upper life, may possibly be, that, in reality 
they know nothing of it. 

30 This is a knowledge unhappily not in the power of many 
authors to arrive at. Books will give us a very imperfect 
idea of it ; nor will the stage a much better : the fine gentle- 
man formed upon reading the former will almost always turn 



AN ESSAY 6l 

out a pedant, and he who forms himself upon the latter, a 
coxcomb. 

Nor are the characters drawn from these models better sup- 
ported. Vanbrugh and Congreve copied nature ; but they who 
copy them draw as unlike the present age, as Hogarth would 5 
do if he was to paint a rout or a drum in the dresses of Titian 
and of Vandyke. In short, imitation here will not do the 
business. The picture must be after nature herself. A true 
knowledge of the world is gained only by conversation, and 
the manners of every rank must be seen in order to be known. 10 

Now it happens that this higher order of mortals is not to be 
seen, like all the rest of the human species, for nothing, in the 
streets, shops, and coifee-houses : nor are they shewn, like the 
upper rank of animals, for so much a piece. In short, this is a 
sight to which no persons are admitted, without one or other 15 
of these qualifications, viz. either birth or fortune ; or what is 
equivalent to both, the honourable profession of a gamester. 
And very unluckily for the world, persons so qualified, very sel- 
dom care to take upon themselves the bad trade of writing; 
which is generally entered upon by the lower and poorer sort, 20 
as it is a trade which many think requires no kind of stock to 
set up with. 

Hence those strange monsters in lace and embroidery, in 
silks and brocades, with vast wigs and hoops; which, under 
the name of lords and ladies, strut the stage, to the great 25 
delight of attornies and their clerks in the pit, and of citizens 
and their apprentices in the galleries ; and which are no more 
to be found in real life, than the centaur, the chimera, or any 
other creature of mere fiction. But to let my reader into a 
secret, this knowledge of upper life, though very necessary 30 
for preventing mistakes, is no very great resource to a writer 
whose province is comedy, or that kind of novels, which, like 
this I am writing, is of the comic class. 



62 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

What Mr. P{?J>e says of women is very applicable to most in 
this station, who are indeed so entirely made up of form and 
affectation, that they have no character at all, at least, none 
which appears. I will venture to say the highest life is much 
5 the dullest, and affords very little humour or entertainment. 
The various callings in lower spheres produce the great variety 
of humorous character; whereas here, except among the few 
who are engaged in the pursuit of ambition, and the fewer 
still who have a relish for pleasure, all is vanity and servile 

lo imitation. Dressing and cards, eating and drinking, bowing 
and curtesying, make up the business of their lives. 

Some there are however of this rank, upon whom passion 
exercises its tyranny, and hurries them far beyond the bounds 
which decorum prescribes; of these, the ladies are as much 

15 distinguished by their noble intrepidity, and a certain superior 
contempt of reputation, from the frail ones of meaner degree, 
as a virtuous woman of quality is by the elegance and delicacy 
of her sentiments from the honest wife of a yeoman or shop- 
keeper. Lady Bellastoji was of this intrepid character ; but 

20 let not my country readers conclude from her, that this is the 
general conduct of women of fashion, or that we mean to rep- 
resent them as such. They might as well suppose, that every 
clergyman was represented by Thwackum, or every soldier by 
Ensign Northej^ton. 

25 There is not indeed a greater error than that which univer- 
sally prevails among the vulgar, who borrowing their opinion 
from some ignorant satyrists, have affixed the character of 
lewdness to these times. On the contrary, I am convinced 
there never was less of love intrigue carried on among persons 

30 of condition, than now. Our present women have been taught 
by their mothers to fix their thoughts only on ambition and 
vanity, and to despise the pleasures of love as unworthy their 
regard ; and being afterwards, by the care of such mothers, 



A LITERARY CONVERSATION IN ELYSIUM 63 

married without having husbands, they seem pretty well con- 
firmed in the justness of those sentiments ; whence they con- 
tent themselves, for the dull remainder of life, with the pursuit 
of more innocent, but I am afraid more childish amusements, 
the bare mention of which would ill suit with the dignity of 
this history. In my humble opinion, the true characteristick 
of the present beau monde, is rather folly than vice, and the 
only epithet which it deserves is that of frivolous. 



XVI 

[A LITERARY CONVERSATION IN ELYSIUM] 

We pursued our way through a delicious grove of orange- 
trees, where I saw. infinite numbers of spirits, every one of 10 
whom I knew, and was known by them : (for spirits here 
know one another by intuition). I presently met a little 
daughter whom I had lost several years before. Good Gods ! 
what words can describe the raptures, the melting passionate 
tenderness, with which we kiss'd each other, continuing in 15 
our embrace, with the most extatic joy, a space which if time 
had been measured here as on earth, could not be less than 
half a year. 

The first spirit, with whom I entered into discourse was 
the famous Leonidas of Sparta. I acquainted him with the 20 
honours which had been done him by a celebrated poet of 
our nation ; to which he answered, he was very much obliged 
to him. 

We were presently afterwards entertained with the most 
delicious voice I had ever heard, accompanied by a violin, 25 
equal to Signior Piantanida. I presently discovered the 
musician and songster to be Orpheus and Sappho. 



64 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

Old Honie^' was present at this consort (if I may so call it), 
and Madam Dacier sat in his lap. He asked much after Mr. 
Pope^ and said he was very desirous of seeing him : for that 
he had read his Iliad in his translation with almost as much 
5 delight, as he believed he had given others in the original. I 
had the curiosity to enquire whether he had really writ that poem 
in detached pieces, and sung it about as ballads all over Greece^ 
according to the report which went of him. He smiled at my 
question, and asked me whether there appeared any connection 

lo in the poem ; for if there did, he thought I might answer my- 
self. I then importuned him to acquaint me in which of the 
cities, which contended for the honour of his birth he was really 
born? To which he answered. . . . Upon my soul I can't tell. 
Virgil then came up to me, with Mr. Addison under his 

15 arm. Well, sir, said he, how many translations have these few 
last years produced of my ySneid? I told him, I believed 
several, but I could not possibly remember ; for that I had 
never read any but Dr. Trapfs, . . . Ay, said he, that is a curi- 
ous piece indeed ! I then acquainted him with the discovery 

20 made by Mr. Warburton of the Eleusinian mysteries couched in 
his 6th book. What mysteries ? said Mr. Addison. The Eleu- 
sinian^ answered Virgil^ which I have disclosed in my 6th 
book. How ! replied Addison. You never mentioned a word 
of any such mysteries to me in all our acquaintance. I thought 

25 it was unnecessary, cried the other, to a man of your infinite 
learning : besides, you always told me, you perfectly under- 
stood my meaning. Upon this I thought the critic looked a 
little out of countenance, and turned aside to a very merry 
spirit, one Dick Steele, who embraced him, and told him, He 

30 had been the greatest man upon earth ; that he readily resigned 
up all the merit of his own works to him. Upon which, Addi- 
son gave him a gracious smile, and clapping him on the back 
with much solemnity, cried out. Well said, Dick. 



A LITERARY CONVERSATION IN ELYSIUM 65 

I then observed Shakespeare standing between Betterton 
and Booths and deciding a difference between these two great 
actors, concerning the placing an accent in one of his lines : 
this was disputed on both sides with a warmth, which surprized 
me in Elysiutn^ till I discovered by intuition, that every soul 5 
retained its principal characteristic, being, indeed, its very 
essence. The line was that celebrated one in Othello ; 

Put out the Lights and then put out the Lights 

according to Betterton. Mr. Booth contended to have it thus ; 

Put out the Lights and thefi put out the Light. 10 

I could not help offering my conjecture on this occasion, and 
suggested it might perhaps be, 

Put out the Lights and then put out thy Light. 

Another hinted a reading very sophisticated in my opinion, 

Put out the Light., and then put out thee, Light j 15 

making light to be the vocative case. Another would have 
altered the last word, and read. 

Put out thy Light., and the7t put out thy Sight. 

But Betterton said, if the text was' to be disturbed, he saw no 
reason why a word might not be changed as well as a letter, 20 
and instead of put out thy Light, you might read put out thy 
Eyes. At last it was agreed on all sides, to refer the matter to 
the decision of Shake spea7'e himself, who delivered his sen- 
timents as follows : *' Faith, gentlemen, it is so long since 
I wrote the line, I have forgot my meaning. This I know, 25 
could I have dreamt so much nonsense would have been 
talked, and writ about it, I would have blotted it out of my 
works : for I am sure, if any of these be my meaning, it doth 
me very little honour." 



66 SELECTED ESSAYS OE FIELDING 

He was then interrogated concerning some other ambiguous 
passages in his works ; but he declined any satisfactory answer : 
saying, if Mr. Theobald had not writ about it sufficiently, there 
were three or four more new editions of his plays coming out, 
5 which he hoped would satisfy every one : concluding, " I mar- 
vel nothing so much as that men will gird themselves at dis- 
covering obscure beauties in an author. Certes the greatest 
and most pregnant beauties are ever the plainest and most 
evidently striking; and when two meanings of a passage can 

lo in the least ballance our judgements which to prefer, I hold 
it matter of unquestionable certainty, that neither of them are 
worth a farthing." 

From his. works our conversation turned on his monument; 
upon which, Shakespeaj-e, shaking his sides, and addressing 

IS himself to Milton, cried out; '' On my word. Brother Milton, 
they have brought a noble set of poets together, they would 
have been hanged erst have convened such a company at their 
tables, when alive." " True, Brother, answered Milton, " unless 
we had been as incapable of eating then as we are now." 



XVII 
COMMENTS UPON AUTHORS 

20 As Booth was therefore what might well be called, in this 
age at least, a man of learning, he began to discour-se our 
author on subjects of literature. " I think, sir," says he, " that 
Doctor Swift hath been generally allowed by the critics in this 
kingdom, to be the greatest master of humour that ever wrote. 

25 Indeed, I allow him to have possessed most admirable talents 
of this kind ; and if Rabelais was his master, I think he proves 
the truth of the common Greek proverb — That the scholar is 



COMMENTS UPON AUTHORS 6/ 

often superior to the master. As to Cervantes^ I do not think 
we can make any just comparison ; for, tho' Mr. Pope compli- 
ments him with sometimes taking Cervantes^ serious air." "I 
remember the passage," cries the author; 

" Oh thoii^ whatever Title please thy Ear, 5 

Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff or GuUiver; 
Whether you take Cervantes' serious Air, 
Or laugh and sJiake in Rabelais' easy Chairs 

"You are right, sir," said Booth; "but tho' I should agree 
that the Doctor hath sometimes condescended to imitate 10 
Rabelais, I do not remember to have seen in his works the 
least attempt in the manner of Cervantes. But there is one 
in his own way, and whom I am convinced he studied above 
all others — you guess, I believe, I am going to name Lucian. 
This author, I say, I am convinced he followed ; but I think he 1 5 
followed him at a distance ; as, to say the truth, every other 
writer of this kind hath done in my opinion : for none, I think, 
hath yet equalled him. I agree, indeed, entirely with Mr. 
Moyle, in his Discourse on the Age of the Philopatris, when 
he gives him the epithet of the incomparable Lucian; and 20 
incomparable I believe he will remain as long as the language 
in which he wrote shall endure. What an inimitable piece of 
humour is his Cock.'" — "I remember it very well," cries the 
author, " his story of a Cock and a Bull is excellent." Booth 
stared at this, and asked the author what he meant by the 25 
Bull? "Nay," answered he, "I don't know very well upon 
my soul. It is a long time since I read him. I learnt him all 
over at school, I have not read him much since. And pray, 
sir," said he, " how do you like his Pharsalia? Don't you 
think Mr. Rome's translation a very fine one? " Booth replied, 30 
" I believe we are talking of different authors. The Pharsalia, 
which Mr. Rowe translated was written by Lucan ; but I have 



68 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

been speaking of Liician, a Greek writer, and in my opinion the 
greatest in the humorous way, that ever the world produced." 
"Ay ! " cries the author, " he was indeed so, a very excellent 
writer indeed. I fancy a translation of him would sell very 
5 well." " I do not know, indeed," cries Booth. "■ A good trans- 
lation of him would be a valuable book. I have seen a wretched 
one published by Mr. Dryden, but translated by others, who 
in many places have misunderstood Lucian' s meaning, and 
have no where preserved the spirit of the original." " That is 

lo great pity," says the author. " Pray, sir, is he well translated 
into French?'''' Booth answered, he could not tell; but that 
he doubted it very much, having never seen a good version 
into that language, out of the Greek. " To confess the truth, 
I believe," said he, " the French translators have generally 

15 consulted the Latin only; which, in some of the few Greek 
writers I have read, is intolerably bad. And as the English 
translators, for the most part, pursue the French^ we may easily 
guess, what spirit those copies of bad copies must preserve of 
the original." 

20 " Egad, you are a shrewd guesser," cries the author, " I 
am glad the booksellers have not your sagacity. But how 
should it be otherwise, considering the price they pay by the 
sheet ? The Gf'-eek, you will allow, is a hard language ; and 
there are few gentlemen that write, who can read it without a 

25 good lexicon. Now, sir, if we were to afford time to find out 
the true meaning of words, a gentleman would not get bread 
and cheese by his work. If one was to be paid, indeed, as 
Mr. Pope was for his Ho?fier. Pray, sir, don't you think that 
the best translation in the world? " 

30 " Indeed, sir," cries Booth, " I think, tho' it is certainly a 
noble paraphrase, and of itself a fine poem, yet, in some places 
it is no translation at all. In the very beginning, for instance, 
he hath not rendered the true force of the author. Homer 



COMMENTS UPON AUTHORS 69 

invokes his muse in the first five fines of the Ifiad ; and, at 
the end of the fifth, he gives his reason : 

Atos S' ereAeieTO ySovAiy. 

For all these things," says he, "were brought about by the 
decree oi Jupiter ; and, therefore, he supposes their true sources 5 
are known only to the deities. Now, the translation takes no 
more notice of the AE than if no such word had been there." 

"Very possibly," answered the author; "it is a long time 
since I read the original. Perhaps, then, he followed the French 
translations. I observe, indeed, he talks much in the notes of 10 
Madam Dacier and Monsieur Eustathhts.^'' 

Booth had now received conviction enough of his friend's 
knowledge of the Greek language ; without attempting there- 
fore, to set him right, he made a sudden transition to the Latin. 
" Pray, sir," said he, " as you have mentioned Rowe's translation 15 
of the Pharsalia, do you remember how he hath rendered that 
passage in the character of Cato ? 

Venerisque hiiic inaxiinus Usus 



Progenies J urbi Pater est, urbigue Maritus. 

For I apprehend that passage is generally misunderstood." 20 

"I really do not remember," answered the author. "Pray, 
sir, what do you take to be the meaning? " 

" I apprehend, sir," replied Booth, "that, by these words, 
Urbi Pater est, U7'bique Maritus, Cato is represented as the 
father and husband to the city of Roniey 25 

" Very true, sir," cries the author ; " very fine, indeed. Not 
only the father of his country, but the husband too ; very noble, 
truly." 

" Pardon me, sir," cries Booth ; " I do not conceive that to 
have been Lucan's meaning. If you please to observe the con- 30 
text ; Liican having commended the temperance of Cato, in 



70 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

the instances of diet and cloaths, proceeds to venereal pleasures ; 
of which, says the poet, his principal use was procreation : then 
he adds, Urbi Pater est, urbique Maritus, That he became a 
father and a husband^ for the sake only of the city." 
5 "Upon my word, that 's true," cries the author, " I did not 
think of it. It is much finer than the other. — Urbis Pater 
est — what is the other? — ay — Urbis M'aritus. — It is cer- 
tainly as you say, sir." 

Booth was, by this, pretty well satisfied of the author's pro- 

lo found learning; however, he was willing to try him a little 

further. He asked him, therefore, what was his opinion of 

Lucan in general, and in what class of writers he ranked him? 

The author stared a little at this question ; and after some 
hesitation, answered, " Certainly, sir, I think he is a fine writer 
15 and a very great poet." 

" I am very much of the same opinion, cries Booth ; but 
where do you class him — next to what poet do you place him ? " 

" Let me see," cries the author, " where do I class him ! 
next to whom do I place him ! — Ay ! — why ! — why, pray, 
20 where do you yourseK place him? " 

" Why, surely," cries Booth ; " if he is not to be placed in 
the first rank with Homer, and Virgil, and Milton — I think 
clearly, he is at the head of the second ; before ejther Statiirs 
or Silius Italicus. — Tho' I allow to each of these their merits ; 
25 but, perhaps, an epic poem was beyond the genius of either. 
I own I have often thought, if Statins had ventured no farther 
than Ovid or Claudian, he would have succeeded better ; for 
his SylvcE are, in my opinion, much better than his Thebdisy 

" I believe I was of the same opinion formerly," said the 
30 author. 

"And for what reason have you altered it? " cries Booth. 

"I have not altered it," answered the author; "but, to tell 
you the truth, I have not any opinion at all about these matters 



COMMENTS UPON AUTHORS 71 

at present. I do not trouble my head much with poetry : for 
there is no encouragement to such studies in this age. It is 
true, indeed, I have now and then wrote a poem or two for 
the magazines ; but I never intend to write any more : for a 
gendeman is not paid for his time. A sheet is a sheet with the 5 
booksellers ; and, whether it be in prose or verse, they make 
no difference ; tho' certainly there is as much difference to a 
gentleman in the work, as there is to a taylor, between making 
a plain and a laced suit. Rhimes are difficult things ; they are 
stubborn things, sir, I have been sometimes longer in tagging 10 
a couplet, than I have been in writing a speech on the side of 
the opposition, which hath been read with great applause all 
over the kingdom." 

*' I am glad you are pleased to confirm that," cries Booth; 
" for I protest, it was an entire secret to me till this day. I was 15 
so perfectly ignorant, that I thought the speeches, published in 
the magazines, were really made by the members themselves." 

" Some of them, and I believe I may, without vanity, say, the 
best," cries the author, " are all the production of my own 
pen ! but, I believe, I shall leave it off soon, unless a sheet of 20 
speech will fetch more than it does at present. In truth, the 
romance writing is the only branch of our business now, that is 
worth following. Goods of that sort have had so much success 
lately in the market, that a bookseller scarce cares what he bids 
for them. And it is certainly the easiest work in the world ; you 25 
may write it almost as fast as you can set pen to paper ; and if 
you interlard it with a little scandal, a little abuse on some living 
characters of note, you cannot fail of success." 

"Upon my word, sir," cries Booths "you have greatly 
instructed me. I could not have imagined, there had been so 30 
much regularity in the trade of writing, as you are pleased to 
mention ; by what I can perceive, the pen and ink is likely to 
become the staple commodity of the kingdom." 



72 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

" Alas ! sir," answered the author, " it is overstocked — The 
market is overstocked. There is no encouragement to merit, 
no patrons. I have been these five years soliciting a subscrip- 
tion for my hew translation of Ovid's Metamoi-phoses^ with 
5 notes explanatory, historical, and critical ; and I have scarce 
collected five hundred names yet." 

The mention of this translation a little surprised Booth ; not 
only as the author had just declared his intentions to forsake 
the tuneful muses ; but for some other reasons, which he had 

lo collected from his conversation with our author, he little ex- 
pected to hear of a proposal to translate any of the Latin poets. 
He proceeded, therefore, to catechise him a little farther ; and 
by his answers was fully satisfied, that he had the very same 
acquaintance with Ovid, that he had appeared to have with 

15 Luc an. 

iGZ ^ \ XVIII 

/^ ^ *^ I 1 1 r i[THE LITERARY REPUBLIC] 

_____ — ^ ■■--"t^vk a.'yadbv iroXvKOLpavirf els Koipapos eario, 

Ets /3a(nXei)s, y e5w/ce Kpopov ttois dyKvXofi-^Teu} 

HiKTJTTTpov T '^Se 6efj.i<TTas, 'iva acpiaiv i/nPacrcKevy. 

Homer. 

— Here is not allow'' d 

20 That worst of tyrants, an ustirping crotvd. 

To one sole monarch Jove commits the sway ; 

His are the laws, and him let all obey. 

Pope. 

Though of the three forms of government acknowledged in 
the schools, all have been very warmly opposed, and as warmly 
25 defended ; yet, in this point, the different advocates will, I 
believe, very readily agree, that there is not one of the three 
which is not greatly to be preferred to a total anarchy ; a state 
in which there is no subordination, no lawful power, and no 



THE LITERARY REPUBLIC 73 

settled government ; but where every man is at liberty to act 
in whatever manner it pleaseth him best. 
• As this is in reality a most deplorable state, I have long 
lamented, with great anguish of heart, that it is at present the 
case of a very large body of people in this kingdom. An asser- 5 
tion which, as it may surprize most of my readers, I will make 
haste to explain, by declaring that I mean the fraternity of the 
quill, that body of men to whom the publick assign the name 
of authors. 

However absurd politicians may have been pleased to rep- 10 
resent the imperiiim in ifiiperio^ it will here, I doubt not, be 
found on a strict examination to be extremely necessary. The 
commonwealth of literature being indeed totally distinct from 
the greater common-wealth, and no more dependent upon it 
than the kingdom of England is on that of France. Of this 15 
our legislature seems to have been at all times sensible, as 
they have never attempted any provision for the regulation or 
correction of this body. In one instance, it is true, there are 
(I should rather, I believe, say there were) some laws to 
restrain them : for writers, if I am not mistaken, have been 20 
formerly punished for blasphemy against God, and libels 
against the government ; nay I have been told, that to slan- 
der the reputation of private persons, was once thought unlaw- 
ful here as well as among the Romans, who, as Horace tells 
us, had a severe law for this purpose. 25 

In promulging these laws (whatever may be the reason of 
suffering them to grow obsolete) the state seems to have acted 
very wisely; as such kind of writings are really of most mis- 
chievous consequence to the publick ; but alas ! there are 
many abuses, many horrid evils, daily springing up in the 30 
commonwealth of literature, which appear to affect only that 
commonwealth, at least immediately, of which none of the 
political legislators have ever taken any notice ; nor hath any 



74 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

civil court of judicature ever pretended to any cognizance of 
them. Nonsense and dulness are no crimes in foro civili : 
no man can be questioned for bad verses in Westminster-hall ; 
and amongst the many indictments for battery, not one can be 
5 produced for breaking poor Priscian's head, though.it is done 
almost every day. 

But though immediately, as I have said, these evils do not 
aifect the greater commonwealth ; yet as they tend to the 
utter ruin of the lesser, so they have a remote evil conse- 

lo quence, even on the state itself; which seems by having left 
them unprovided for, to have remitted them, for the sake of 
convenience, to the government of laws, and to the superin- 
tendence of magistrates of this lesser commonwealth ; and 
never to have foreseen or suspected that dreadful state of 

15 anarchy, which at present prevails in this lesser empire; an 
empire which hath formerly made so great a figure in this 
kingdom, and that indeed almost within our own memories. 

It may appear strange, that none of our English historians 
have spoken clearly and distinctly of this lesser empire ; but 

20 this may be well accounted for, when we consider that all 
these histories have been written by two sorts of persons ; that 
is to say, either politicians or lawyers. Now the former of 
these have had their imaginations so entirely filled with the 
affairs of the greater empire, that it is no wonder the busi- 

25 ness of the lesser should have totally escaped their obser- 
vation. And as to the lawyers, they are well known to have 
been very little acquainted with the commonwealth of liter- 
ature, and to have always acted and written in defiance to 
its laws. 

30 From these reasons it is very difficult to fix, with certainty, 
the exact period when this commonwealth first began among 
us. Indeed, if the originals of all the greater empires upon 
earth, and even of our own, be wrapped in such obscurity 



THE LITERARY REPUBLIC 75 

that they elude the enquiries of the most diligent sifters of 
antiquity, we cannot be surprised that this fate should attend 
our httle empire, opposed as it hath been by the pen of the 
lawyer, overlooked by the eye of the historian, and never once 
smelt after by the nose of the antiquarian. 5 

In the earliest ages, the literary state seems to have been an 
ecclesiastical democracy : for the clergy are then said to have 
had all the learning among them ; and the great reverence paid 
at that time to it by the laity, appears from hence, that whoever 
could prove in a court of justice that he belonged to this state, 10 
by only reading a single verse in the Testament, was vested 
with the highest privileges, and might do almost what he 
pleased ; even commit murder with impunity. And this privi- 
lege was called the benefit of the clergy. 

This commonwealth, however, can scarce be said to have 15 
been in any flourishing state of old time, even among the 
clergy themselves ; inasmuch as we are told, that a rector of 
a parish going to law with his parishioners about paving the 
church, quoted this authority from St. Peter, Paveant i/H, non 
paveam ego. Which he construed thus : " They are to pave 20 
the church, and not L" And this by a judge, who was likewise 
an ecclesiastic, was allowed to be very good law. 

The nobility had, clearly no antient connection with this 
commonwealth, nor would submit to be bound by any of its 
laws, witness that provision in an old act of parliament ; " that 25 
a nobleman shall be entitled to the benefit of his clergy (the 
privilege above-mentioned) even though he cannot read." 
Nay the whole body of the laity, though they gave such hon- 
ours to this commonwealth, appear to have been very few of 
them under its jurisdiction ; as appears by a law cited by 30 
judge Rolls in his Abridgment, with the reason which he gives 
for it : " The command of the sheriff, says this writer, to his 
officer by word of mouth, and without writing, is good ; for it 



^6 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

may be, that neither the sheriff nor his officer can write or 
read." 

But not to dwell on these obscure times, when so very little 
authentic can be found concerning this commonwealth, let us 
5 come at once to the days of Henry the eighth, when no less a 
revolution happened in the lesser than in the greater empire : 
for the Hterary government became absolute together with the 
political, in the hands of one and the same monarch; who 
was himself a writer, and dictated not only law but common 

10 sense too, to all his people ; suffering no one to write or speak 
but according to his own will and pleasure. 

After this king's demise, the literary commonwealth was 
again separated from the political; for I do not find that his 
successor on the greater throne, succeeded him likewise in the 

15 lesser. Nor did either of the two queens, as I can learn, pre- 
tend to any authority in this empire, in which the salique law 
hath universally prevailed ; for though there have been some 
considerable subjects of the female sex in the literary common- 
wealth, I never remember to have read of a queen. 

20 It is not easy to say with any great exactness what form 
of government was preserved in this commonwealth during 
the reigns of Edward VI, Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth ; 
for though there were some great men in those times, none of 
them seemed to have affected the throne of wit : nay, Shake- 

25 speare, who flourished in the latter end of the last reign, and 
who seemed so justly qualified to enjoy this crown, never 
thought of challenging it. 

In the reign of James I. the hterary government was an 
aristocracy, for I do not chuse to give it the evil name of 

30 oligarchy, though it consisted only of four, namely, master 
WiUiam Shakespeare, master Benjamin Johnson, master John 
Fletcher, and master Francis Beaumont. This quadrumvirate, 
as they introduced a new form of government, thought proper 



THE LITERARY REPUBLIC 77 

according to Machiavel's advice, to introduce new names ; they 
therefore called themselves the wits, a name which hath been 
affected since by the reigning monarchs in this empire. 

The last of this quadrmnvirate enjoyed the government 
alone during his life ; after which the . troubles that shortly 5 
after ensued, involved this lesser commonwealth in all the 
confusion and ruin of the greater, nor can anything be found 
of it with sufficient certainty, till the wits in the reign of 
Charles the second, after many struggles among themselves 
for superiority, at last agreed to elect John Dryden to be their 10 
king. 

This King John had a very long reign, though a very un- 
quiet one ; for there were several pretenders to the throne of 
wit in his time, who formed very considerable parties against 
him, and gave him great uneasiness, of which his successor hath 15 
made mention in the following lines : 

Pride, folly, malice, against Dryden rose, 
In various shapes of parsons, critics, beaus. 

Besides which, his finances were in such disorder, that it is 
affirmed his treasury was more than once entirely empty. 20 

He died nevertheless in a good old age, possessed of the 
kingdom of wit, and was succeeded by king Alexander, sur- 
named Pope. 

This prince enjoyed the crown many years, and is thought 
to have stretched the prerogative much farther than his pred- 25 
ecessor : he is said to have been extremely jealous of the 
affections of his subjects, and to have employed various spies, 
by whom, if he was informed of the least suggestion against 
his title, he never failed of branding the accused person with 
the word dunce on his forehead in broad letters ; after which 30 
the unhappy culprit was obliged to lay by his pen for ever ; 
for no bookseller would venture to print a word that he wrote. 



y^ SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

He did indeed put a total restraint on the liberty of the 
press : for no person durst read any thing which was writ with- 
out his licence and approbation; and this licence he granted 
only to four during his reign, namely, to the celebrated Dr. 
5 Swift, to the ingenious Dr. Young, to Dr. Arbuthnot, and to 
one Mr. Gay, four of his principal courtiers and favourites. 

But without diving any deeper into his character, we must 
allow that king Alexander had great merit as a writer, and his 
title to the kingdom of wit was better founded at least than his 
lo enemies have pretended. 

After the demise of king Alexander, the literary state 
relapsed again into a democracy, or rather indeed into down- 
right anarchy; of which, as well as of the consequences, I 
shall treat in a future paper. 



>S3 ^ as^ 

f0.tO ^^* ^ [THE PURPOSE OF LETTERS] 



15 -^i nosiri proavi Plardinos et numeros, et 

Laudevere sales ; 7iiinium patienter utrumque^ 
Ne dicani stjilt}, niiraii. 

Modernized 

In fortJter times this tastless, silly town 

Too fondly praised Tom D' Urfey and Tom Brown. 

20 The present age seems pretty well agreed in an opinion, 
that the utmost scope and end of reading is amusement only ; 
and such, indeed, are now the fashionable books, that a reader 
can propose no more than mere entertainment, and it is some- 
times very well for him if he finds even this in his studies. 

25 Letters, however, were surely intended for a much more 
noble and profitable purpose than this. Writers are not, I pre- 
sume, to be considered as mere jack-puddings, whose business 



THE PURPOSE OF LETTERS 79 

it is only to excite laughter : this, indeed, may sometimes be 
intermixed, and served up, with graver matters, in order to 
titillate the palate, and to recommend wholesome food to the 
mind ; and, for this purpose, it hath been used by many excel- 
lent authors : "for why," as Horace says, "should not any one 5 
promulgate truth with a smile on his countenance?" Ridi- 
cule indeed, as he again intimates, is commonly a stronger 
and better method of attacking vice, than the severer kind 
of satire. 

When wit and humour are introduced for such good pur- 10 
poses, when the agreeable is blended with the useful, then is 
the writer said to have succeeded in every point. Pleasantry, 
(as the ingenious author of Clarissa says of a story) should 
be made only the vehicle of instruction; and thus romances 
themselves, as well as Epic Poems, may become worthy the 15 
perusal of the greatest of men : but when no moral, no lesson, 
no instruction is conveyed to the reader, where the whole 
design of the composition is no more than to make us laugh, 
the writer comes very near to the character of a buffoon ; and 
his admirers, if an old Latin proverb be true, deserve no great 20 
compliments to be paid to their wisdom. 

After what I have here advanced, I cannot fairly, I think, 
be represented as an enemy to laughter, or to all those kinds 
of writing that are apt to promote it. On the contrary, few 
men, I believe, do more admire the works of those great mas- 25 
ters who have sent their satire (if I may use the expression) 
laughing into the world. Such are that great Triumvirate, 
Lucian, Cervantes, and Swift. These authors I shall ever hold 
in the highest degree of esteem ; not indeed for that wit and 
humour alone which they all so eminently possest, but because 30 
they all endeavoured, with the utmost force of their wit and 
humour, to expose and extirpate those follies and vices which 
chiefly prevailed in their several countries. 



8o SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

I would not be thought to confine wit and humour to these 
writers. Shakespeare, Moliere, and some other authors, have 
been blessed with the same talents, and have employed them 
to the same purposes. There are some, however, who, though 
5 not void of these talents, have made so wretched a use of them, 
that, had the consecration of their labours been committed to 
the hands of the hangman, no good man would have regretted 
their loss : nor am I afraid to mention Rabelais, and Aris- 
tophanes himself in this number. For, if I may speak my 

lo opinion freely of these two last writers, and of their works, 
their design appears to me very plainly to have been to ridi- 
cule all sobriety, modesty, decency, virtue and religion, out of 
the world. Now whoever reads over the five great writers 
first mentioned in this paragraph, must either have a very bad 

15 head, or a very bad heart, if he doth not become both a wiser 
and a better man. 

In the exercise of the mind, as well as in the exercise of the 
body, diversion is a secondary consideration, and designed 
only to make that agreeable, which is at the same time useful, 

20 to such noble purposes as health and wisdom. But what should 
we say to a man who mounted his chamber hobby, or fought 
with his own shadow for his amusement only? how much 
more absurd and weak would he appear, who swallowed 
poison because it was sweet? 

25 How differently did Horace think of study from our modern 
readers ? 

Quid vermn atque decens euro et rogo, et onifiis in hoc sum : 
Condo et co?npono, quae mox depromere possijn. 

" Truth and decency are my whole care and enquiry. In 

30 this study I am entirely occupied ; these I am always laying 

up, and so disposing, that I can at any time draw forth my 

stores for my immediate use." The whole epistle indeed, from 



I 



THE PURPOSE OF LETTERS 8 1 

which 1 have paraphrased this passage, is a comment upon it, 
and affords many useful lessons of philosophy. 

When we are employed in reading a great and good author, 
we ought to consider ourselves as searching after treasures, 
which, if well and regularly laid up in the mind, will be of use 5 
to us oh sundry occasions in our lives. If a man, for instance, 
should be overloaded with prosperity or adversity, (both of 
which cases are hable to happen to us) who is there so very 
wise, or so very fooHsh, that, if he was a master of Seneca and 
Plutarch, could not find great matter of comfort and utility 10 
from their doctrines? I mention these rather than Plato and 
Aristotle, as the works of the latter are not, I think, yet com- 
pletely made English ; and, consequently, are less within the 
reach of most of my countrymen. 

But, perhaps, it may be asked, will Seneca or Plutarch make 15 
us laugh ? perhaps not ; but if you are not a fool, my worthy 
friend, which I can hardly with civility suspect, they will both, 
(the latter especially) please you more than if they did. For 
my own part, I declare, I have not read even Lucian himself 
with more delight than I have Plutarch ; but surely it is aston- 20 
ishing that such scriblers as Tom Brown, Tom D'Urfy, and 
the wits of our age should find readers, whilst the writings of 
so excellent, so entertaining, and so voluminous an author as 
Plutarch remain in the world, and, as I apprehend, are very 
little known. 25 

The truth I am afraid is, that real taste is a quality with 
which human nature is very slenderly gifted. It is indeed so 
very rare, and so little known, that scarce two authors have 
agreed in their notions of it ; and those who have endeavoured 
to explain it to others, seem to have succeeded only in shew- 30 
ing us that they knew it not themselves. If I might be allowed 
to give my own sentiments, I should derive it from a nice har- 
mony between the imagination and the judgment ; and hence 



82 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

perhaps it is, that so few have ever possessed this talent in any 
eminent degree. Neither of these will alone bestow it ; noth- 
ing is indeed more common than to see men of very bright 
imaginations, and of very accurate learning (which can hardly 
5 be acquired without judgment) who are entirely devoid of 
taste ; and Longinus, who of all men seems most exquisitely 
to have possessed it, will puzzle his reader very much if he 
should attempt to decide, whether imagination or judgment 
shine the brighter in that inimitable critic. 

lo But as for the bulk of mankind, they are clearly void of any 
degree of taste. It is a quality in which they advance very 
little beyond a state of infancy. The first thing a child is fond 
of in a book, is a picture ; the second is a story ; and the 
third a jest. Here then is the true Pons Asinorum, which very 

15 few readers ever get over. 

From what I have said, it may perhaps be thought to appear, 
that true taste is the real gift of nature only ; and if so, some may 
ask to what purpose have I endeavoured to show men that they 
are without a blessing, which it is impossible for them to attain ? 

20 Now, though it is certain that to the highest consummation 
of taste, as well as of every other excellence, nature must lend 
much assistance ; yet great is the power of art almost of itself, 
or at best with only slender aids from nature ; and to say the 
truth, there are very few who have not in their minds some 

25 small seeds of taste. "All men (says Cicero) have a sort of 
tacit sense of what is right or wrong in arts and sciences, even 
without the help of arts." This surely it is in the power of art 
very greatly to improve. That most men therefore proceed 
no farther than as I have above declared, is owing either to 

30 the want of any, or (what is perhaps yet worse) to an improper 
education. 

I shall, probably, therefore, in a future paper, endeavour to 
lay down some rules by which all men may acquire, at least, 



ACHIEVEMENTS OF GREAT MEN 83 

some degree of taste. In the mean while, I shall, (according 
to the method observed in innoculation) recommend to my 
readers, as a preparative for their receiving my instructions, a 
total abstinence from all bad books. I do therefore most ear- 
nestly intreat all my young readers, that they would cautiously 5 
avoid the perusal of any modern book till it hath first had the 
sanction of some wise and learned man ; and the same caution 
I propose to all fathers, mothers, and guardians.^ 

" Evil communications corrupt good manners," is a quota- 
tion of St. Paul from Menander. Evil books corrupt at once 10 
both our manners and our taste. 

XX 

SHEWING THE WHOLESOME USES DRAWN FROM 
RECORDING THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF THOSE 
WONDERFUL PRODUCTIONS OF NATURE 
CALLED GREAT MEN 

As it is necessary that all great and surprizing events, the 
designs of which are laid, conducted, and brought to perfec- 
tion by the utmost force of human invention and art, should 
be managed by great and eminent men, so the lives of such 15 
may be justly and properly styled the quintessence of history. 
In these, when dehvered to us by sensible writers, we are not 
only most agreeably entertained, but usefully instructed ; for 
besides the attaining hence a consummate knowledge of 
human nature in general ; its secret springs, various windings, 20 
and perplexed mazes ; we have here before our eyes, lively 
examples of whatever is amiable or detestable, worthy of 
admiration or abhorrence, and are consequently taught in a 
manner infinitely more effectual than by precept, what we are 
eagerly to imitate or carefully to avoid. 25 



84 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

But besides the two obvious advantages of surveying as it 
were in a picture, the true beauty of virtue, and deformity of 
vice, we may moreover learn from Plutarch^ Nepos, Suetonius, 
and other biographers this useful lesson, not too hastily nor 

5 in the gross to bestow either our praise or censure : since we 
shall often find such a mixture of good and evil in the same 
character, that it may require a very accurate judgment and 
elaborate inquiry to determine which side the ballance turns : 
for tho' we sometimes meet with an Ai-istides or a S?'utus, a 

lo Lysander or a Nero, yet far the greater number are of the mixt 
kind ; neither totally good nor bad ; their greatest virtues 
being obscured and allayed by their vices, and those again 
softened and coloured over by their virtues. 

Of this kind was the illustrious person whose history we here 

15 now undertake; who, as he was embellished with many of the 
greatest and noblest endowments, so these could not well be 
said to be absolutely pure and without allay. If we view one 
side of his character only, he must be acknowledged equal, if 
not superior to most of the heroes of antiquity : but if we turn 

20 to the reverse, it must be confessed our admiration will be a 
little abated, and his character will savour rather of the weak- 
ness of modern than the uniform greatness of ancient heroes. 

We would not therefore be understood to affect giving the 
reader a perfect or consummate pattern of human virtue ; but 

25 rather by faithfully recording the little imperfections which 
somewhat darkened the lustre of his great qualities, to teach 
the lesson we have above mentioned, and induce our reader 
with us to lament the frailty of human nature, and to convince 
him that no mortal, after a thorough scrutiny, can be a proper 

30 object of our adoration. 

But before we enter on this great work, we must endeavour 
to remove some errors of opinion which mankind have by the 
disingenuity of writers contracted : for those from their fear 



ACHIEVEMENTS OF GREAT MEN 85 

of attacking or contradicting the obsolete doctrines of a set 
of simple fellows called, in derision, sages or philosophers, 
have endeavoured as much as possible, to confound the ideas 
of greatness and goodness, whereas no two things can possibly 
be more distinct from each other. For greatness consists in 5 
bringing all manner of mischief on mankind, and goodness in 
removing it from them. Now, tho' the writer, if he will con- 
fine himself to truth, is obliged to draw a perfect picture of 
the former in all the actions which he records of his hero, yet 
to reconcile his work with those absurd doctrines abovemen- 10 
tioned, he is ever guilty of interspersing reflections in reality 
to the disadvantage of that great perfection, uniformity of 
character ; for instance, in the histories of Alexander and 
Ccesar, we are frequently reminded of their benevolence and 
generosity. When the former had with fire and sword overrun 15 
a whole empire, and destroyed the lives of millions of inno- 
cent people, we are told as an example of his benevolence, 
that he did not cut the throat of an old woman, and ravish 
her daughters whom he had before undone : And when the 
mighty Ccesar had with wonderful greatness of mind destroyed 20 
the liberties of his country, and gotten all the power into his 
own hands, we receive, as an evidence of his generosity, his 
largesses to his followers and tools, by whose means he had 
accomplished his purpose, and by whose assistance he was to 
establish it. 25 

Now who doth not see that such sneaking qualities as these 
are rather to be bewailed as imperfections than admired as 
ornaments in those great men, rather obscuring their glory 
and holding them back in their race to greatness, and unworthy 
the end for which they seem to have come into the world, viz. 30 
of perpetrating vast and mighty mischief ? 

We hope our reader will have reason justly to acquit us of 
any such confounding ideas in the following pages, in which, 



S6 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

as we are to record the actions of a great man, so we have no 
where mentioned any spark of goodness which hath discovered 
itself either faintly in him, or more glaringly in any other per- 
son, but as a meanness and imperfection, disquahfying them 
5 for undertakings which lead to honour and esteem among 
men. 

As our hero had as little as perhaps is to be found of that 
meanness, indeed only enough to make him partaker of the 
imperfection of humanity, and not the perfection of dcemonism, 
lo we have ventured to call him THE GREAT ; nor do we doubt 
but our reader will, when he hath perused his story, concur 
with us in allowing him that title. 

XXI 
[THE CHARACTER OF A GREAT THIEF] 

We will now endeavor to draw the character of this GREAT 
MAN, and by bringing together those several features as it 

15 were of his mind, which lie scattered up and down in this 
history, to present our readers with a perfect picture of 
GREATNESS. 

Jonathan Wild had every qualification necessary to form 
a GREAT MAN : As his most powerful and predominant 

20 passion was ambition, so nature had with consummate pro- 
priety, adapted all his faculties to the attaining those glo- 
rious ends, to which this passion directed him. He was 
extremely ingenious in inventing designs ; artful in contriving 
the means to accomplish his purposes, and resolute in execut- 

25 ing them : For, as the most exquisite cunning, and most 
undaunted boldness qualified him for any undertaking, so was 
he not restrained by any of those weaknesses which disappoint 
the views of mean and vulgar souls, and which are compre- 



THE CHARACTER OF A GREAT THIEF ^J 

hended in one general term of Honesty, which is a corruption 
of Nonosty, a word derived from what the Greeks call an ass. 
He was entirely free from those low vices of modesty and 
good-nature, which, as he said, implied a total negative of 
human GREATNESS, and were the only qualities which 5 
absolutely rendered a man incapable of making a considerable 
figure in the world. His lust was inferior only to his ambition ; 
but, as for what simple people call love, he knew not what it 
was. His avarice was immense ; but it was of the rapacious, 
not of the tenacious kind ; his rapaciousness was indeed so 10 
violent, that nothing ever contented him but the whole ; for, 
however considerable the share was, which his coadjutors 
allowed him of a booty, he was restless in inventing means to 
make himself master of the meanest pittance reserved by them. 
He said. Laws were made for the use of prigs only, and to 15 
secure their property; they were never therefore more per- 
verted, than when their edge was turned against these ; but 
that this generally happened through their want of sufficient 
dexterity. The character which he most valued himself upon, 
and which he principally honoured in others, was that of hypoc- 20 
risy. His opinion was, that no one could carry priggism very 
far without it; for which reason, he said, there was little 
GREATNESS to be expected in a man who acknowledged his 
vices ; but always much to be hoped from him, who professed 
great virtues ; wherefore, though he would always shun the 25 
person whom he discovered guilty of a good action, yet he 
was never deterred by a good character, which was more com- 
monly the effect of profession than of action : For which reason, 
he himself was always very liberal of honest professions, and 
had as much virtue and goodness in his mouth as a saint; 30 
never in the least scrupling to swear by his honour, even to 
those who knew him the best ; nay, tho' he held good-nature 
and modesty in the highest contempt, he constantly practised 



88 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

the affectation of both, and recommended it to others, whose 
welfare, on his own account, he wished well to. He laid 
down several maxims, as the certain methods of attaining 
GREATNESS, to which, in his own pursuit of it, he constantly 
5 adhered. As 

1. Never to do more mischief to another, than was necessary to 
the effecting his purpose ; for that mischief was too precious a 
thing to be thrown away, 

2. To know no distinction of men from affection ; but to sacrifice 
lo all with equal readiness to his interest. 

3. Never to communicate more of an affair than was necessary, 
to the person who was to execute it. 

4. Not to trust him, who had deceived him, nor who knew he 
had been deceived by him. 

15 5. To forgive no enemy ; but to be cautious and often dilatory in 
revenge. 

6. To shun poverty and distress, and to ally himself, as close as 
possible, to power and riches. 

7. To maintain a constant gravity in his countenance and behav- 
20 iour, and to affect wisdom on all occasions. 

8. To foment eternal jealousies in his gang, one of another. 

9. Never to reward any one equal to his merit ; but always to 
insinuate, that the reward was above it. 

10. That all men were knaves or fools, and much the greater 
25 number a composition of both. 

11. That a good name, like money, must be parted with, or at 
least greatly risqued, in order to bring the owner any advan- 
tage. 

1 2. That virtues, like precious stones, were easily counterfeited ; 
30 that counterfeits in both cases adorned the wearer equally, 

and that very few had knowledge or discernment sufficient to 
distinguish the counterfeit jewel from the real. 

13. That many men were undone by not going deep enough in 
roguery, as in gaming any man may be the loser who doth 

35 not play the whole game. 



THE CHARACTER OF A GREAT THIEF 89 

14. That men proclaim their own virtues, as shopkeepers expose 
their goods, in order to profit by them. 

15. That the heart was the proper seat of hatred, and the coun- 
tenance of affection and friendship. 

He had many more of the same kind, all equally good with 5 
these, and which were after his decease found in his study, as 
the twelve excellent and celebrated rules were in that of King 
Charles the first ; for he never promulgated them in his life 
time, not having them constantly in his mouth, as some grave 
persons have the rules of virtue and morality, without paying 10 
the least regard to them in their actions ; whereas our hero, by 
a constant and steady adherence to his rules in conforming every 
thing he did to them, acquired at last a settled habit of walk- 
ing by them, till at last he was in no danger of inadvertently 
going out of the way; and by these means he arrived at that 15 
degree of GREATNESS, which few have equalled ; none, we 
may say, have exceeded : For, tho' it must be allowed that 
there have been some few heroes, who have done greater 
mischiefs to mankind, such as those who have betrayed the 
liberties of their country to others, or have undermined and 20 
over-powered it themselves, or conquerors who have impover- 
ished, pillaged, sacked, burnt, and destroyed the countries and 
cities of their fellow creatures, from no other provocation than 
that of glory ; i.e. as the tragic poet calls it, 

A Privilege to kill, 25 

A strong Te7nptation to do bravely ill. 

yet, if we consider it in the light wherein actions are placed 
in this line, 

Lcetius est, quoties magno tibi constat honestum . 

when we see him, without the least assistance or pretence, 30 
setting himself at the head of a gang, which he had not any 



go SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

shadow of right to govern ; if we view him maintaining abso- 
lute power, and exercising tyranny over a lawless crew, con- 
trary to all law, but that of his own will. If we consider him 
setting up an open trade publicly, in defiance, not only of the 
5 laws of his country but of the common sense of his country- 
men ; if we see him first contriving the robbery of others, and 
again the defrauding the very robbers of that booty, which they 
had ventured their necks to acquire, and which without any 
hazard they might have retained : Here sure he must appear 
lo admirable, and we may challenge riot only the truth of history, 
but almost the latitude of fiction, to equal it. 



XXII 
[MATTERS POLITICAL] 

" How can it be otherwise ? says the peer. Do you think it 
is possible to provide for all men of merit? " 

" Yes, surely do I," said the Doctor. " And very easily 
15 too." 

"How pray? — cries the Lord — "Upon my word, I shall 
be glad to know." 

"Only by not providing for those of none — The men of 
merit in any capacity are not I am afraid so extremely numer- 
20 ous, that we need starve any of them, unless we wickedly suf- 
fer a set of worthless fellows to eat their bread." 

" This is all mere Utopia^ cries his Lordship. The chimer- 
ical system of Plato's Commonwealth with which we amused 
ourselves at the university; politics which are inconsistent 
25 with the state of human affairs." 

" Sure, my Lord, cries the Doctor, we have read of states 
where such doctrines have been put in practice. What is 
your Lordship's opinion of Rome in the earlier ages of the 



MATTERS POLITICAL 9I 

commonwealth, of Sparta^ and even of Athens itself, in some 
periods of its history? " 

" Indeed, Doctor, cries the Lord, all these notions are obso- 
lete and long since exploded. To apply maxims of govern- 
ment drawn from the Greek and Roman histories, to this 5 
nation, is absurd and impossible. But if you will have Roman 
examples, fetch them from times like our own. Do you not 
know. Doctor, that this is as corrupt a nation as ever existed 
under the sun? And would you think of governing such a 
people by the strict principles of honesty and morality?" 10 

*' If it be so corrupt, said the Doctor, I think it is high time 
to amend it. Or else it is easy to foresee the consequence : 
for corruption in the body politic as naturally tends to disso- 
lution as in the natural body." 

"I thank you for your simile, cries my Lord: for in the 15 
natural body, I believe, you will allow there is the season of 
youth, the season of manhood, and the season of old age ; 
and that, when the last of these arrives, it will be an impos- 
sible attempt by all the means of art to restore the body again 
to its youth, or to the vigour of its middle age. The same 20 
periods happen to every great kingdom. In its youth it rises 
by arts and arms to power and prosperity. This it enjoys 
and flourishes with a while ; and then it may be said to be in 
the vigour of its age, enrich'd at home with all the emolu- 
ments and blessings of peace, and formidable abroad with all 25 
the terrors of war. At length this very prosperity introduces 
corruption ; and then comes on its old age. Virtue and 
learning, art and industry, decay by degrees. The people 
sink into sloth and luxury, and prostitution. It is enervated 
at home, becomes contemptible abroad ; and such indeed is 30 
its misery and wretchedness, that it resembles a man in the 
last decrepid stage of life, who looks with unconcern at his 
approaching dissolution." 



92 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

" This is a melancholy picture indeed," cries the Doctor ; 

" and if the latter part of it can be applied to our case, I see 

nothing but religion which should prevent a man of spirit 

from hanging himself out of the way of so wretched a con- 

5 templation." 

"Why so?" said the peer; "Why hang himself, Doctor? 
Would it not be wiser, think you, to make the best of your 
time, and the most you can in such a nation?" 

"And is religion then to be really laid out of the ques- 

lo tion? " cries the Doctor. 

" If I am to speak my own opinion, sir," answered the 
peer, " you know I shall answer in the negative. — But you 
are too well acquainted with the world to be told, that the 
conduct of politicians is not formed upon the principles of 

15 religion." 

"I am very sorry for it," cries the Doctor; "but I will 
talk to them then of honour and honesty : This is a language 
which I hope they will at least pretend to understand. Now 
to deny a man the preferment which he merits, and to give 

20 it to another man who doth not merit it, is a manifest act of 
injustice ; and is consequently inconsistent with both honour 
and honesty. Nor is it only an act of injustice to the man 
himself, but to the public, for whose good principally all 
public offices are, or ought to be instituted. Now this good 

25 can never be completed, nor obtained, but by employing all 
persons according to their capacities. Wherever true merit 
is liable to be superseded by favour and partiality, and men 
are intrusted with offices, without any regard to capacity or 
integrity, the affairs of that state will always be in a deplor- 

30 able situation. Such, as Livy tells us, was the state of Capita^ 
a little before its final destruction ; and the consequence 
your Lordship well knows. But, my Lord, there is another 
mischief which attends this kind of injustice, and that is, it 



MATTERS POLITICAL 93 

hath a manifest tendency to destroy all virtue and all ability 
among the people, by taking away all that encouragement 
and incentive, which should promote emulation, and raise 
men to aim at excelling in any art, science, or profession. 
Nor can anything, my Lord, contribute more to render a 5 
nation contemptible among its neighbours ; for what opinion 
can other countries have of the councils, or what terror can 
they conceive of the arms of such a people? And it was 
owing singly, perhaps, to the avoiding this error, that Oliver 
Cromwell C2kxnt<l the reputation of England higher than it ever 10 
was at any other time. I will add only one argument more, 
and that is founded on the most narrow and selfish system 
of politics ; and this is, that such a conduct is sure to create 
universal discontent and grumbling at home : for nothing can 
bring men to rest satisfied, when they see others preferred to 15 
them, but an opinion that they deserve that elevation ; for as one 
of the greatest men this country ever produced, observes. 

One worthless Man that gains what he pretends^ 
Disgusts a thousand unpretenditig Friends. 

With what heartburnings then must any nation see them- 20 
selves obliged to contribute to the support of a set of men, 
of whose incapacity to serve them they are well apprized, and 
who do their country a double diskindness ; by being them- 
selves employed in posts to which they are unequal, and by 
keeping others out of those employments, for which they are 25 
qualified ! " 

"And do you really think. Doctor," cries the nobleman, 
" that any minister could support himself in this country upon 
such principles as you recommend? Do you think he would 
be able to baffle an opposition, unless he should oblige his 30 
friends by conferring places often, contrary to his own inch- 
nations, and his own opinion? " 



94 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

" Yes, really do I," cries the Doctor. " Indeed if a minister is 
resolved to make good his confession in the liturgy, by leaving 
undone all those things which he ought to have done, and by 
doing all those things which he ought not to have done : such 
5 a minister, I grant, will be obliged to baffle opposition, as you 
are pleased to term it ; for as Shakespeare somewhere says, 

Things ill begicn strengthen themselves by III. 

But if, on the contrary, he will please to consider the true 
interest of his country, and that only in great and national 

lo points; if he will engage his country in neither alliances or 
quarrels, but where it is really interested ; if he will raise no 
money but what is wanted ; nor employ any civil or military 
officers but what are useful ; and place in .these employments 
men of the highest integrity, and of the greatest abilities ; if 

15 he will employ some few of his hours to advance our trade, 
and some few more to regulate our domestic government : if 
he would do this, my Lord, I will answer for it he shall have 
no opposition to baffle. Such a minister may, in the language 
of the law, put himself on his country when he pleases and he 

20 shall come off with honour and applause." 

"And do you really believe, Doctor," cries the peer, "there 
ever was such a minister, or ever will be? " 

"Why not, my Lord? " answered the Doctor. " It requires 
no very extraordinary parts, nor any extraordinary degree of 

25 virtue. He need practise no great instances of self-denial. 
He shall have power, and honour, and riches, and perhaps all 
in a much greater degree than he can ever acquire, by pursu- 
ing a contrary system. He shall have more of each, and much 
more of safety." 

30 " Pray, Doctor," said my Lord, " let me ask you one simple 
question. Do you really believe any man upon earth was ever 
a rogue out of choice? " 



MATTERS POLITICAL 95 

"Really, my Lord," says the Doctor, "I am ashamed to 
answer in the affirmative ; and yet I am afraid experience 
would almost justify me if I should. Perhaps the opinion of 
the world may sometimes mislead men to think those meas- 
ures necessary, which in reality are not so. Or the truth may 5 
be, that a man of good inclinations finds his office filled with 
such corruption by the iniquity of his predecessors, that he 
may despair of being capable of purging it ; and so sits down 
contented, as Aiigeas did with the filth of his stables, not 
because he thought them the better, or that such filth was 10 
really necessary to a stable ; but that he despaired of suffi- 
cient force to cleanse them." 

'' I will ask you one question more, and I have done," said 
the nobleman. " Do you imagine that if any minister was 
really as good as you would have him, that the people in 15 
general would believe that he was so?" 

"Truly, my Lord," said the Doctor, " I think they may be 
justified in not believing too hastily. But I beg leave to answer 
your Lordship's question by another. Doth your Lordship 
believe that the people of Greenland^ when they see the light 20 
of the sun, and feel his warmth, after so long a season of cold 
and darkness, will really be persuaded that he shines upon 
them? " 

My Lord smiled at the conceit ; and then the Doctor took 
an opportunity to renew his suit, to which his Lordship 25 
answered he would promise nothing, and could give him no 
hopes of success : " But you may be assured," said he with a 
leering countenance, " I shall do him all the service in my 
power." A language which the Doctor well understood, and 
soon after took a civil, but not a very ceremonial leave. 30 



96 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

XXIII 

A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE WORLD AND 
THE STAGE 

The world hath been often compared to the theatre ; and 
many grave writers, as well as the poets, have considered 
human life as a great drama, resembling, in almost every par- 
ticular, those scenical representations, which Thespis is first 
5 reported to have invented, and which have been since received 
with so much approbation and delight in all pohte countries. 

This thought hath been carried so far, and become so gen- 
eral, that some words proper to the theatre, and which were, 
at first, metaphorically apphed to the world, are now indis- 

lo criminately and Hterally spoken of both : thus stage and scene 
are by common use grown as familiar to us, when we speak 
of life in general, as when we confine ourselves to dramatic 
performances ; and when we mention transactions behind the 
curtain, St. James's is more likely to occur to our thoughts 

15 than Drury-Lane. 

It may seem easy enough to account for all this, by reflecting 
that the theatrical stage is nothing more than a representation, 
or, as Aristotle calls it, an imitation of what really exists ; and 
hence, perhaps, we might fairly pay a very high compliment 

20 to those, who by their writings or actions have been so capable 
of imitating life, as to have their pictures, in a manner con- 
founded with, or mistaken for, the originals. 

But, in reality, we are not so fond of paying compliments 
to these people, whom we use as children frequently do the 

25 instruments of their amusement ; and have much more pleas- 
ure in hissing and buffeting them, than in admiring their 
excellence. There are many other reasons which have induced 
us to see this analogy between the world and the stage. 



THE WORLD AND THE STAGE 97 

Some have considered the larger part of mankmd in the 
light of actors, as personating characters no more their own, 
and to which, in fact, they have no better title, than the player 
hath to be truly thought the king or emperor whom he repre- 
sents. Thus the hypocrite may be said to be a player; and 5 
indeed the Greeks called them both by one and the same 
name. 

The brevity of life hath likewise given occasion to this 
comparison. So the immortal Shakespear. 

Life ''s a poor player, 10 



That storms and sti'uts his hour upon the stage, 
And then is heard no more. 

For which hackneyed quotation, I will make the reader amends 
by a very noble one, which few, I believe, have read. It is 
taken from a poem called the Deity, published about nine years 15 
ago, and long since buried in obhvion. A proof that good 
books no more than good men do always survive the bad. 

From Thee * all human actions take their springs, 

The rise of empires, and the fall of kings ! 

See the vast theatre of time display'd, 20 

While o'er the scene succeeding heroes tread ! 

With pomp the shining images succeed, 

What leaders triumph, and what monarchs bleed! 

Perform the parts thy providence assign'd, 

Their pride, their passions to thy ends inclin'd : 25 

A while they glitter in the face of day, 

Then at thy nod the phantoms pass away ; 

No traces left of all the busy scene, 

But that remembrance says — the things have been ! 

In all these, however, and in every other similitude of life to 30 
the theatre, the resemblance hath been always taken from the 

* The Deity. 



98 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

stage only. None, as I remember, have at all considered the 
audience at this great drama. 

But as Nature often exhibits some of her best performances 
to a very full house ; so will the behaviour of her spectators 
5 no less admit the above-mentioned comparison than that of 
her actors. In this vast theatre of time are seated the friend 
and the critic ; here are claps and shouts, hisses and groans ; 
in short, every thing which was ever seen or heard at the 
Theatre Royal. 

lo Now we, who are admitted behind the scenes of this great 
theatre of nature, (and no author ought to write any thing 
besides dictionaries and spelling-books who hath not this 
privilege) can censure the action, without conceiving any 
absolute detestation of the person, whom perhaps Nature may 

1 5 not have designed to act an ill part in all her dramas : for in 
this instance, life most exactly resembles the stage, since it 
is often the same person who represents the villain and the 
heroe ; and he who engages your admiration today, will prob- 
ably attract your contempt tomorrow. As Garrick, whom I 

2o regard in tragedy to be the greatest genius the world hath ever 
produced, sometimes condescends to play the fool ; so did 
Scipio the Great and Lcelius the Wise, according to Horace y 
many years ago : nay, Cicero reports them to have been 
"incredibly childish." — These, it is true play'd the fool, like 

25 my friend Garrick^ in jest only; but several eminent charac- 
ters have, in numberless instances of their lives, played the 
fool egregiously in earnest; so far as to render it a matter of 
some doubt, whether their wisdom or folly was predominant ; 
or whether they were better intitled to the applause or censure, 

30 the admiration or contempt, the love or hatred of mankind. 
Those persons, indeed, who have passed any time behind 
the scenes of this great theatre, and are thoroughly acquainted 
not only with the several disguises which are there put on. 



MORAL REFLECTIONS BY JOSEPH ANDREWS 99 

but also with the fantastic and capricious behaviour of the 
Passions who are the managers and directors of this theatre, 
(for as to Reason the patentee, he is known to be a very idle 
fellow, and seldom to exert himself) may most probably have 
learned to understand the famous nil admirari of Uoi^ace, or 5 
in the English phrase, to stare at nothing. 

A single bad act no more constitutes a villain in life, than a 
single bad part on the stage. The passions, like the managers 
of a playhouse, often force men upon parts, without consulting 
their judgement, and sometimes without any regard to their 10 
talents. Thus the man, as well as the player, may condemn 
what he himself acts ; nay, it is common to see vice sit as 
awkwardly on some men, as the character of lago would on 
the honest face of Mr. William Mills. 

Upon the whole then, the man of candour and of true 15 
understanding, is never hasty to condemn. He can censure 
an imperfection, or even a vice, without rage against the guilty 
party. In a word, they are the same folly, the same childish- 
ness, the same ill-breeding, and the same ill-nature, which 
raise all the clamours and uproars both in life, and on the 20 
stage. The worst of men generally have the words rogue and 
villain most in their mouths, as the lowest of all wretches are 
the aptest to cry out low in the pit. 

XXIV 
MORAL REFLECTIONS BY JOSEPH ANDREWS 

I have often wondered, sir, said Joseph, to observe so few 
instances of charity among mankind ; for tho' the goodness 25 
of a man's heart did not incline him to relieve the distresses 
of his fellow-creatures, methinks the desire of honour should 
move him to it. What inspires a man to build fine houses, to 

I. or c. 



lOO SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

purchase fine furniture, pictures, clothes, and other things at 
a great expence, but an ambition to be respected more than 
other people? Now would not one great act of charity, one 
instance of redeeming a poor family from all the miseries of 
5 poverty, restoring an unfortunate tradesman by a sum of money 
to the means of procuring a liveHhood by his industry, discharg- 
ing an undone debtor from his debts or a gaol, or any such 
like example of goodness, create a man more honour and 
respect than he could acquire by the finest house, furniture, 

lo pictures or clothes that were ever beheld? For not only 
the object himself, who was thus relieved, but all who heard 
the name of such a person must, I imagine, reverence him 
infinitely more than the possessor of all those other things : 
which when we so admire, we rather praise the builder, the 

15 workman, the painter, the laceman, the taylor, and the rest, 
by whose ingenuity they are produced, than the person who 
by his money makes them his own. For my own part, when I 
have waited behind my lady in a room hung with fine pictures, 
while I have been looking at them I have never once thought 

20 of their owner, nor hath any one else, as I ever observed ; for 
when it hath been asked whose picture that was, it was never 
once answered the master's of the house, but Ammyconni, Paul 
Varnish, Han^iibal Scratchi, or Hogarthi, which I suppose 
were the names of the painters : but if it was asked, who 

25 redeemed such a one out of prison? who lent such a ruined 
tradesman money to set up? who cloathed that family of poor 
little children? it is very plain, what must be the answer. 
And besides, these great folks are mistaken, if they imagine 
they get any honour at all by these means; for I do not 

30 remember I ever was with my lady at any house where she 
commended the house or furniture, but I have heard her at her 
return home make sport and jeer at whatever she had before 
commended : and I have been told by other gentlemen in 



MORAL REFLECTIONS BY JOSEPH ANDREWS lOI 

livery, that it is the same in their families : but I defy the 
wisest man in the world to turn a true good action into ridicule. 
I defy him to do it. He who should endeavour it, would be 
laughed at himself, instead of making others laugh. Nobody 
scarce doth any good, yet they all agree in praising those who 5 
do. Indeed it is strange that all men should consent in com- 
mending goodness, and no man endeavour to deserve that 
commendation ; whilst, on the contrary, all rail at wickedness, 
and all are as eager to be what they abuse. This I know not the 
reason of ; but it is as plain as daylight to those who converse 10 
in the world, as I have done these three years. "■ Are all the 
great folks wicked then? " says Fanny. To be sure there are 
some exceptions, answered Joseph. Some gentlemen of our 
cloth report charitable actions done by their lords and masters, 
and I have heard Squire Pope, the great poet, at my lady's 15 
table, tell stories of a man that lived at a place called Ross, 
and another at the Bath, one Al — Al — I forget his name, 
but it is in the book of verses. This gentleman hath built up 
a stately house too, which the 'squire likes very well ; but his 
charity is seen farther than his house, tho' it stands on a hill, 20 
ay, and brings him more honour. It was his charity that put 
him upon the book, where the 'squire says he puts all those 
who deserve it ; and to be sure, as he lives among all those 
great people, if there were any such, he would know them. 
This was all of Mr. Joseph Andrews^ s speech which I could 25 
get him to recollect, which I have delivered as near as was 
possible in his own words, with a very small embellishment. 



I02 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

XXV 
[HIGH PEOPLE AND LOW PEOPLE] 

Be it known then, that the human species are divided into 
two sorts of people, to wit, high people and low people. As by 
high people, 1 would not be understood to mean persons lit- 
erally born higher in their dimensions than the rest of the 
5 species, nor metaphorically those of exalted characters or abil- 
ities ; so by low people I cannot be construed to intend the 
reverse. High people signify no other than people of fashion, 
and low people those of no fashion. Now, this word fashion, 
hath by long use lost its original meaning, from which at pres- 

lo ent it gives us a very different idea : for I am deceived, if by 
persons of fashion, we do not generally include a conception 
of birth and accomphshments superior to the herd of man- 
kind ; whereas in reality, nothing more was originally meant 
by a person of fashion, than a person who drest himself, in the 

15 fashion of the times; and the word really and truly signifies 
no more at this day. Now the world being thus divided into 
people of fashion, and people of no fashion, a fierce conten- 
tion arose between them, nor would those of one party, to 
avoid suspicion, be seen publicly to speak to those of the 

20 other ; though they often held a very good correspondence in 
private. In this contention, it is difficult to say which party 
succeeded : for, whilst the people of fashion seized several 
places to their own use, such as courts, assemblies, operas, 
balls, &c. the people of no fashion, besides one royal place 

25 called his Majesty's Bear-garden, have been in constant pos- 
session of all hops, fairs, revels, &c. Two places have been 
agreed to be divided between them, namely the church and the 
playhouse; where they segregate themselves from each other 
in a remarkable manner : for as the people of fashion exalt 



HIGH PEOPLE AND LOW PEOPLE 103 

themselves at church over the heads of the people of no 
fashion ; so in the playhouse they abase themselves in the 
same degree under their feet. This distinction I have never 
met with any one able to account for ; it is sufficient, that so 
far from looking on each other as brethren in the Christian 5 
language, they seem scarce to regard each other as of the 
same species. This the terms strange persons, people one does 
not know, the creature, iv retches, beasts, brutes, and many 
other appellations evidently demonstrate ; which Mrs. Slipslop 
having often heard her mistress use, thought she had also 10 
a right to use in her turn : and perhaps she was not mis- 
taken ; for these two parties, especially those bordering nearly 
on each other, to wit the lowest of the high, and the highest 
of the low, often change their parties according to place and 
time ; for those who are people of fashion in one place, are 1 5 
often people of no fashion in another : and with regard to 
time, it may not be unpleasant to survey the picture of 
dependance like a kind of ladder ; as for instance early in 
the morning arises the postillion, or some other boy which 
great families no more than great ships are without, and falls 20 
to brushing the clothes, and cleaning the shoes of John the 
footman, who being drest himself, applies his hands to the 
same labours for Mr. Second-hand the squire's gentleman ; 
the gentleman in the like manner, a little later in the day, 
attends the squire ; the squire is no sooner equipped, than 25 
he attends the levee of my lord ; which is no sooner over, 
than my lord himself is seen at the levee of the favourite, 
who after his hour of homage is at an end, appears himseK 
to pay homage to the levee of his sovereign. Nor is there 
perhaps, in this whole ladder of dependance, any one step 30 
at a greater distance from the other, than the first from the 
second : so that to a philosopher the question might only 
seem whether you would chuse to be a great man at six in 



I04 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

the morning, or at two in the afternoon. And yet there are 
scarce two of these, who do not think the least familiarity 
with the persons below them a condescension, and if they 
were to go one step farther, a degradation. 



XXVI 
[ON LIBERTY] 

5 By liberty, however, I apprehend, is commonly understood 
the power of doing what we please : not absolutely ; for then 
it would be inconsistent with law, by whose control the liberty 
of the freest people, except only the Hottentots and wild 
Indians, must always be restrained. 

lo But, indeed, however largely we extend, or however moder- 
ately we confine, the sense of the word, no politician will, I 
presume, contend that it is to pervade in an equal degree, and 
be with the same extent enjoyed by every member of society ; 
no such polity having been ever found, unless among those 

15 vile people just before commemorated. Among the Greeks 
and Romans, the servile and free conditions were opposed 
to each other; and no man who had the misfortune to be 
enrolled under the former, could lay any claim to liberty, 
till the right was conveyed to him by that master whose slave 

20 he was, either by the means of conquest, of purchase, or of 
birth. 

This was the state of all the free nations in the world ; and 

this, till very lately, was understood to be the case of our own. 

I will not indeed say this is the case at present, the lowest 

25 class of our people having shaken off all the shackles of their 
superiors, and become not only as free, but even freer, than 
most of their superiors. I believe it cannot be doubted, 
though, perhaps, we have no recent instance of it, that the 



ON LIBERTY 105 

personal attendance of every man who hath three hundred 
pounds per antiuui^ in parHament, is indispensably his duty ; 
and that, if the citizens and burgesses of any city or borough 
shall chuse such a one, however reluctant he appear, he may 
be obliged to attend, and be forcibly brought to his duty by 5 
the Serjeant at arms. 

Again, there are numbers of subordinate offices, some of 
which are of burthen, and others of expence, in the civil gov- 
ernment : all of which, persons who are qualified, are liable 
to have imposed on them, may be obliged to undertake and 10 
properly execute, notwithstanding any bodily labour, or even 
danger, to which they may subject themselves, under the pen- 
alty of fines and imprisonment ; nay, and what may appear 
somewhat hard, may be compelled to satisfy the losses which 
are eventually incident to that of sheriff in particular, out of 15 
their own private fortunes ; and though this should prove the 
ruin of a family, yet the public, to whom the price is due, 
incurs no debt or obligation to preserve its officer harmless, 
let his innocence appear ever so clearly. 

I purposely omit the mention of those military or militiary 20 
duties, which our old constitution laid upon its greatest mem- 
bers. These might, indeed, supply their posts with some other 
able-bodied men ; but, if no such could have been found, the 
obligation nevertheless remained, and they were compellable 
to serve in their own proper persons. 25 

The only one, therefore, who is possessed of absolute liberty, 
is the lowest member of the society, who, if he prefers hunger, 
or the wald product of the fields, hedges, lanes and rivers, with 
the indulgence of ease and laziness, to a food a little more 
delicate, but purchased at the expence of labour, may lay him- 30 
self under a shade ; nor can be forced to take the other alter- 
native from that which he hath, I will not affirm whether 
wisely or foolishly, chosen. 



Io6 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

Here I may, perhaps, be reminded of the last vagrant act, 
where all such persons are compellable to work for the usual 
and accustomed wages allowed in the place ; but this is a 
clause little known to the justices of the peace, and least likely 
5 to be executed by those who do know it, as they know like- 
wise that it is formed on the antient power of the justices 
to fix and settle these wages every year, making proper allow- 
ances for the scarcity and plenty of the times, the cheapness 
and dearness of the place ; and that the usual and accustomed 

lo laages, are words without any force or meaning, when there are 
no such ; but every man spunges and raps whatever he can 
get ; and will haggle as long, and struggle as hard to cheat his 
employer of two-pence in a day's labour, as an honest trades- 
man will to cheat his customers of the same sum in a yard of 

15 cloth or silk. 

It is a great pity "then that this power, or rather this prac- 
tice, was not revived; but this having been so long omitted, 
that it is become obsolete, will be best done by a new law, in 
which this power, as well as the consequent power of forcing 

20 the poor to labour at a moderate and reasonable rate, should 
be well considered, and their execution facihtated ; for gentle- 
men who give their time and labour gratis, and even volun- 
tarily, to the public, have a right to expect that all their busi- 
ness be made as easy as possible ; and to enact laws without 

25 doing this, is to fill our statute-books, much too full already, 
still fuller with dead letter, of no use but to the printer of the 
acts of parliament. 






0^ 



^u THE POWER OF THE MOB 107 



^ 



XXVII 
[THE POWER OF THE MOB] 

Odi profaiittm vulgus. HoR. 
/ hate the mob. 

In a former paper I have endeavoured to trace the rise and 
progress of the power of the fourth estate in this constitution. 
I shall now examine that share of power which they actually 5 
enjoy at this day, and then proceed to consider the several 
means by which they have attained it. 

First, though this estate have not as yet claimed that right 
which was insisted on by the people or mob in old Rome, of 
giving a negative voice in the enacting laws, they have clearly 10 
exercised this power in controlling their execution. Of this 
it is easy to give many instances, particularly in the case of 
the gin-act some years ago; and in those of several turnpikes 
which have been erected against the good-will and pleasure of 
the mob, and have by them been demolished. 15 

In opposing the execution of such laws, they do not always 
rely on force ; but have frequent recourse to the most refined 
policy : for sometimes, without openly expressing their disap- 
probation, they take the most effectual means to prevent the 
carrying a law into execution ; those are by discountenancing 20 
all those who endeavour to prosecute the offences committed 
against it. 

They well know, that the courts of justice cannot proceed 
without informations ; if they can stifle these, the law of course 
becomes dead and useless. The informers therefore in such 25 
cases, they declare to be infamous, and guilty of the crime 
IcEsae mobilitatis. Of this whoever is suspected (which is 
with them a synonymous term with convicted) is immediately 
punished by buffeting, kicking, stoning, ducking, bemudding, 



I08 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

&c. in short, by all those means of putting, (sometimes quite, 
sometimes almost) to death, which are called by that general 
phrase of mobbing. 

It may perhaps be said that the mob do, even at this day, 
5 connive at the execution of some laws, which they can by no 
means be supposed to approve. 

Such are the laws against robbery, burglary, and theft. 
This is, I confess, true ; and I have often wondered that it is 
so. The reason perhaps is, the great love which the mob have 

lo for a holiday, and the great pleasure they take in seeing men 
hanged ; so great, that, while they are enjoying it, they are 
all apt to forget, that this is hereafter, in all probability, to 
be their own fate. 

In all these matters however, the power of this estate is 

15 rather felt than seen. It seems indeed to be Hke that power 
of the crown of France, which Cardinal de Retz compares to 
those religious mysteries that are performed in the sanctum 
sanctorum ; and which, though it be often exercised, is never 
expressly claimed. 

20 In other instances, the fourth estate is much more explicit 
in their pretensions, and much more constant in asserting and 
maintaining them ; of which I shall mention some of the 
principal. 

First, they assert an exclusive right to the river of Thames. 

25 It is true, the other estates do sometimes venture themselves 
upon the river ; but this is only upon sufferance ; for which 
they pay whatever that branch of the fourth estate called 

- watermen, are pleased to exact of them. Nor are the mob 
contented with all these exactions. They grumble whenever 

30 they meet any persons in a boat, whose dress declares them 
to be of a different order from themselves. Sometimes they 
carry their resentment so far, as to endeavour to run against 
the boat, and overset it ; but if they are too good-natured to 



THE POWER OF THE MOB 109 

attempt this, they never fail to attack the passengers with all 
kind of scurrilous, abusive, and indecent terms, which indeed 
they claim as their own, and call mob language. 

The second exclusive right which they insist on, is to those 
parts of the streets, that are set apart for the foot-passengers. 5 
In asserting this privilege, they are extremely rigorous ; inso- 
much, that none of the other orders can walk through the 
streets by day without being insulted, nor by night without 
being knocked down. And the better to secure these foot- 
paths to themselves, they take effectual care to keep the said 10 
paths always well blocked up with chairs, wheel-barrows, and 
every other kind of obstruction ; in order to break the legs of 
those who shall presume to encroach upon their privileges by 
walking the streets. 

Here it was hoped their pretensions would have stopped ; 1 5 
but it is difficult to set any bounds to ambition ; for, having 
sufficiently established this right, they now begin to assert 
their right to the whole street, and to have lately made such a 
disposition with their waggons, carts, and drays, that no coach 
can pass along without the utmost difficulty and danger. With 20 
this view we every day see them driving side by side, and 
sometimes in the broader streets three a breast ; again, we see 
them leaving a cart or waggon in the middle of the street, 
and often set a-cross it, while the driver repairs to a neighbour- 
ing ale-house, from the window of which he diverts himself 25 
while he is drinking, with the mischief or inconvenience which 
his vehicle occasions. 

The same pretensions which they make to the possession 
of the streets, they make likewise to the possession of the 
high-ways. I doubt not I shall be told they claim only an 30 
equal right : for I know it is very usual when a carter or a 
dray-man is civilly desired to make a little room, by moving 
out of the middle of the road either to the right or left, to 



no SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

hear the following answer: " D — n your eyes, who are you? 
Is not the road, and be d — n'd to you, as free for me as 
you? " Hence it will, I suppose, be inferred that they do not 
absolutely exclude the other estates from the use of the com- 
5 mon high- ways. But notwithstanding this generous concession 
in words, I do aver this practice is different, and that a gentle- 
man may go a voyage at sea with little more hazard than he 
can travel ten miles from the metropolis. 

I shall mention only one claim more, and that a very new 

lo and a very extraordinary one. It is the right of excluding all 
women of fashion out of St, James's-Park on a Sunday evening. 
This they have lately asserted with great vehemence, and have 
inflicted the punishment of mobbing on several ladies, who had 
transgressed without design, not having been apprised of the 

15 good pleasure of the mob in this point. And this I the rather 
publish to prevent any such transgressions for the future, since 
it hath already appeared that no degree of either dignity or 
beauty can secure the offender.* 

Many things have contributed to raise this fourth estate to 

20 that exorbitant degree of power which they at present enjoy, 
and which seems to threaten to shake the balance of our con- 
stitution. I shall name only three, as these appear to me to 
have had much the greatest share in bringing it about. 

The first is that act of parliament which was made at the 

25 latter end of Queen Elizabeth's reign, and wliich I cannot 
help considering as a kind of compromise between the other 
three estates and this. By this act it was stipulated, that the 
fourth estate should annually receive out of the possessions of 
the others, a certain large proportion yearly, upon an implied 

30 condition (for no such was expre^t) that they should suffer the 
other estates to enjoy the rest of their property without loss 
or molestation. 

* A lady of great quality, and admirable beauty, was mobbed in the 
park at this time. 



THE POWER OF THE MOB m 

This law gave a new turn to the minds of the mobility. 
They found themselves no longer obliged to depend on the 
charity of their neighbours, nor on their own industry for a 
maintenance. They now looked on themselves as joint pro- 
prietors in the land, and celebrated their independency in 5 
songs of triumph ; witness the old ballad which was in all their 

mouths, 

Hang sorrow, cast away care; 

The parish is bound to find us, &c. 

A second cause of their present elevation has been the 10 
private quarrels between particular members of the other 
estates, who, on such occasions, have done all they could on 
both sides to raise the power of the mob, in order to avail 
themselves of it, and to employ it against their enemies. 

The third and the last which I shall mention, is the mis- 15 
taken idea which some particular persons have always enter- 
tained of the word liberty; but this will open too copious a 
subject, and shall be therefore treated in a future paper. 

But before I dismiss this, I must observe that there are two 
sorts of persons of whom this fourth estate do yet stand in 20 
some awe, and whom consequently they have in great abhor- 
rence : These are a justice of peace, and a soldier. To these 
two it is entirely owing that they have not long since rooted 
all the other orders out of the commonwealth. 



^ ^< 112 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

XXVIII 
[ON HUMOROUS CHARACTERS] 

^ Juvat integros accedere fontes, 

Atque haurire Lucretius 

It is pleasant to handle 

An untouched subject. 

5 It hath been observed, that characters of humour do abound 
more in this our island, than in any other country ; and this 
hath been commonly supposed to arise from that pure and per- 
fect state of liberty which we enjoy in" a degree greatly supe- 
rior to every foreign nation. 

lo This opinion, I know, hath great sanction, and yet I am 
inclined to suspect the truth of it, unless we will extend the 
meaning of the word liberty farther than I think it hath been 
yet carried, and will include in it not only an exemption from 
all restraint of municipal laws, but likewise from all restraint of 

15 those rules of behaviour which are expressed in the general term 
of good breeding. Laws which, though not written, are per- 
haps better understood, and though established by no coercive 
power, much better obeyed within the circle where they are 
received, than any of those laws which are recorded in books, 

20 or enforced by public authority. 

A perfect freedom from these laws, if I am not greatly mis- 
taken, is absolutely necessary to form the true character of 
humour ; a character which is therefore not [to] be met with 
among those people who conduct themselves by the rules of 

25 good breeding. 

For, indeed, good breeding is little more than the art of 
rooting out all those seeds of humour which nature had origi- 
nally implanted in our minds. 



ON HUMOROUS CHARACTERS 1 13 

To make this evident, it seems necessary only to explain the 
terms, a matter in which I do not see the great difficulty which 
hath appeared to other writers. Some of these have spoken of 
the word humour, as if it contained in it some mystery impos- 
sible to be revealed, and no one, as I know of, hath undertaken 5 
to shew us expressly what it is, though I scarce doubt but it 
was done by Aristotle in his treatise on comedy, which is unhap- 
pily lost. 

But what is more surprising, . is, that we find it pretty well 
explained in authors who at the same time tell us, they know 10 
not what it is. Mr. Congreve, in a letter to Mr. Dennis, hath 
these words : "■ We cannot certainly tell what wit is, or what 
humour is," and within a few lines afterwards he says, "There 
is a great difference between a comedy wherein there are many 
things humourously, as they call it, which is pleasantly spoken ; 15 
and one where there are several characters of humour, distin- 
guished by the particular and different humours appropriated 
to the several persons represented, and which naturally arise 
from the different constitutions, complexions, and dispositions 
of men. And again, I take humour to be a singular and una- 20 
voidable manner of saying or doing any thing peculiar and 
natural to one man only ; by which his speech and actions are 
distinguished from those of other men. Our humour hath rela- 
tion to us, and to what proceeds from us, as the accidents have 
to a substance ; it is a colour, taste, and smell diffused through 25 
all ; though our actions are ever so many, and different in form, 
they are all splinters of the same wood, and have naturally one 
complexion, &c." 

If my reader hath any doubt whether this is a just description 
of humour, let him compare it with those examples of humor- 30 
ous characters, which the greatest masters have given us, and 
which have been universally acknowledged as such, and he 
will be perhaps convinced. 



114 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

Ben Johnson, after complaining of the abuse of the word, 
proceeds thus : 

Why humour (as 't is ens) we thus define it, 
To be a quality of air, or water, 
5 And in itself holds these two properties, 

Moisture and iluxure ; as for demonstration. 
Pour water on this floor ; 'twill wet and run ; 
Likewise the air forc'd thro' a horn, or trumpet 
Flows instantly away, and leaves behind 

ID A kind of dew ; and hence we do conclude. 

That whatsoe'er hath fluxure and humidity, 
As wanting power to contain itself, 
Is humour. So in every human body. 
The choler, melancholy, phlegm and blood, 

IS By reason that they flow continually 

In some one part, and are not continent, 
Receive the name of humours. ' Now thus far, 
♦ It may, by metaphor, apply itself 
' Unto the general disposition : 

20 ' As when some one peculiar quality 

< Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw, 
' All his effects, his spirits, and his powers, 
' In their conflnxions all to run one way,' 
Tkzs may be truly said to be a humour. 

25 But that a rook by wearing a py'd feather, 

The cable hatband, or the three piled ruff, 
A yard of shoe-tie, or the Switzer's knot 
On his French garters, should affect a humour ! 
O ! it is more than most ridiculous. 

30 This passage is in the first act of Every man out of his humour; 
and I question not but to some readers, the author will appear 
to have been out of his wits when he wrote it ; but others, I 
am positive, will discern much excellent ore shining among the 
rubbish. In truth, his sentiment, when let loose from that stiff 



ON HUMOROUS CHARACTERS II5 

boddice in which it is laced, will amount to this, that as the term- 
humour contains in it the ideas of moisture and fluxure, it was 
applied to certain moist and flux habits of the body, and after- 
wards metaphorically to peculiar qualities of the mind, which, 
when they are extremely prevalent, do, like the predominant 5 
humours of the body, flow all to one part, and as the latter 
are known to absorb and drain off all the corporeal juices and 
strength to themselves, so the former are no less certain of 
engaging the affections, spirits, and powers of the mind, and 
of enlisting them as it were, into their own service, and under 10 
their own absolute command. 

Here then we have another pretty adequate notion of 
humour, which is indeed nothing more than a violent bent 
or disposition of the mind to some particular point. To enu- 
merate indeed these several dispositions would be, as Mr. Con- 15 
greve observes, as endless as to sum up the several opinions of 
men ; nay, as he well says, the quot homines^ tot sentetiticB may 
be more properly interpreted of their humours, than their 
opinions. 

Hitherto there is no mention of the ridiculous, the idea of 20 
which, though not essential to humour, is always included 
in our notions of it. The ridiculous is annexed to it these 
two ways, either by the manner or the degree in which it is 
exerted. 

By either of these, the very best and worthiest disposition 25 
of the human mind may become ridiculous. Excess, says 
Horace, even in the pursuit of virtue, will lead a wise and 
good man into folly and vice. — So will it subject him to 
ridicule ; for into this, says the judicious Abbe Bellegarde, a 
man may tumble headlong with an excellent understanding, 30 
and with the most laudable qualities. Piety, patriotism, loyalty, 
parental affection, &c. have all afforded characters of humour 
for the stage. 



Il6 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

By the manner of exerting itself likewise a humour becomes 
ridiculous. By this means chiefly the tragic humour differs from 
the comic ; • it is the same ambition which raises our horror in 
Macbeth, and our laughter at the drunken sailors in the Tem- 
5 pest ; the same avarice which causes the dreadful incidents in 
the fatal curiosity of Lillo, and in the Miser of Moliere ; the 
same jealousy which forms an Othello, or a Suspicious Hus- 
band. No passion or humour of the mind is absolutely either 
tragic or comic in itself. Nero had the art of making vanity 

lo the object of horror ; and Domitian, in one instance, at least, 
made cruelty ridiculous. 

As these tragic modes however never enter into our notion 
of humour, I will venture to make a small addition to the sen- 
timents of the two great masters I have mentioned, by which 

15 I apprehend my description of humour will pretty well coin- 
cide with the general opinion. By humour then, I suppose, 
is generally intended a violent impulse of the mind, determin- 
ing it to some one particular point, by which a man becomes 
ridiculously distinguished from all other men. 

20 If there be any truth in what I have now said, nothing 
can more clearly follow than the manifest repugnancy between 
humour and good breeding. The latter being the art of con- 
ducting yourself by certain common and general rules, by 
which means, if they were universally observed, the whole 

25 world would appear (as all courtiers actually do) to be, in their 
external behaviour, at least, but one and the same person. 

I have not room at present, if I were able, to enumerate 
the rules of good breeding : I shall only mention one, which 
is a summary of them all. This is the most golden of all rules, 

30 no less than that of doing to all men as you would they should 
do unto you. 

In the deviation from this law, as I hope to evince in my 
next, all that we call humour principally consists. I shall at 



CONTEMPORARY EDUCATION 11/ 

the same time, I think, be able to shew, that it is to this devi- 
ation we owe the general character mentioned in the begin- 
ning of this paper, as well as to assign the reasons why we of 
this nation have been capable of attracting to ourselves such 
merit in preference to others. 



C-6 



J 




2-Cy /7rv 



XXIX 
[CONTEMPORARY EDUCATION] 

Hoc fonte derivata. HoR. 
These are the sources. 

At the conclusion of my last paper, I asserted that the sum- 
mary of good breeding was no other than that comprehensive 
and exalted rule, which the greatest authority hath told us is lo 
the sum total of all religion and all morality. 

Here, however, my readers will be pleased to observe that 
the subject matter of good breeding being only what is called 
behaviour, it is this only to which we are to apply it on the 
present occasion. Perhaps therefore we shall be better under- 15 
stood, if we vary the word, and read it thus : Behave unto all 
men, as you would they should behave unto you. 

This will most certainly oblige us to treat all mankind with 
the utmost civility and respect, there being nothing which we 
desire more than to be treated so by them. This will most 20 
effectually restrain the indulgence of all those violent and 
inordinate desires, which, as we have endeavoured to shew, 
are the true seeds of humour in the human mind : the growth 
of which good breeding will be sure to obstruct ; or will at 
least so overtop and shadow, that they shall not appear. The 25 
ambitious, the covetous, the proud, the vain, the angry, 
the debauchee, the glutton, are all lost in the character of 



Il8 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

the well-bred man ; or, if nature should now and then venture 
to peep forth, she withdraws in an instant, and doth not shew 
enough of herself to become ridiculous. 

Now humour arises from the very opposite behaviour, from 

5 throwing the reins on the neck of our favourite passion, and 
giving it a full scope and indulgence. The ingenious Abbe, 
whom I quoted in my former paper, paints this admirably in 
the characters of ill-breeding, which he mentions as the first 
scene of the ridiculous. ' 111 breeding (ITmpoUtesse) says he, 

lo is not a single defect, it is the result of many. It is sometimes 
a gross ignorance of decorum, or a stupid indolence, which 
prevents us from giving to others what is due to them. It is 
a peevish malignity which inclines us to oppose the inclina- 
tions of those with whom we converse. It is the consequence 

15 of a foolish vanity, which hath no complaisance for any other 
person ; the effect of a proud and whimsical humour, which 
soars above all the rules of civility ; or, lastly, it is produced 
by a melancholy turn of mind, which pampers itself (^ui trouve 
du Ragout) with a rude and disobliging behaviour.' 

20 Having thus shewn, I think, very clearly, that good breed- 
ing is, and must be, the very bane of the ridiculous, that is to 
say, of all humorous characters ; it will perhaps be no difficult 
task to discover why this character hath been in a singular 
manner attributed to this nation. 

25 For this I shall assign two reasons only, as these seem to 
me abundantly satisfactory, and adequate to the purpose. 

The first is that method so general in this kingdom of giving 
no education to the youth of both sexes ; I say general only, 
for it is not without some few exceptions. 

30 Much the greater part of our lads of fashion return from 
school at fifteen or sixteen, very little wiser, and not at all the 
better, for having been sent thither. Part of these return to 
the place from whence they came, their fathers' country seats ; 



CONTEMPORARY EDUCATION 119 

where racing, cock-fighting, hunting, and other rural sports, 
with smoaking, drinking, and party become their pursuit, and 
form the whole business and amusement of their future lives. 
The other part escape to town in the diversions, fashion, fol- 
lies and vices of which they are immediately initiated. In this 5 
academy some finish their studies, while others by their wiser 
parents are sent abroad, to add the knowledge of the diver- 
sions, fashions, follies, and vices of all Europe, to that of those 
of their own country. 

Hence then we are to derive two great general characters 10 
of humour, which are the clown and the coxcomb, and both 
of these will be almost infinitely diversified according to the 
different passions and natural dispositions of each individual ; 
and according to their different walks in life. Great will be 
the difference, for instance, whether the country gentleman 15 
be a whig or a tory ; whether he prefers women, drink, or 
dogs ; so will it be whether the town spark be allotted to serve 
his country as a politician, a courtier, a soldier, a sailor, or 
possibly a churchman (for by draughts from this academy, all 
these offices are supplied) ; or lastly, whether his ambition 20 
shall be contented with no other appellation than merely that 
of a beau. 

Some of our lads however, are destined to a further progress 
in learning ; these are not only confined longer to the labours 
of a school, but are sent thence to the university. Here, if 25 
they please, they may read on ; and if they please, they may 
(as most of them do) let it alone, and betake themselves as 
their fancy leads, to the imitation of their elder brothers either 
in town or country. 

This is a matter which I shall handle very tenderly, as I am 30 
clearly of an opinion that an university education is much the 
best we have ; for here at least there is some restraint laid on 
the inclinations of our youth. The sportsman, the gamester. 



I20 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

and the sot, cannot give such a loose to their extravagance, as 
if they were at home and under no manner of government ; 
nor can our spark, who is disposed to the town pleasures, find 
either gaming-houses or play-houses, nor half the taverns or 
5 bawdy-houses which are ready to receive him in Covent- 
Garden. 

So far however, I hope, I may say without offence, that, 
among all the schools at the universities, there is none where 
the science of good-breeding is taught; no lectures like the 

lo excellent lessons on the ridiculous, which I have quoted above, 
and which I do most earnestly recommend to all my young 
readers. Hence the learned professions produce such excel- 
lent characters of humour ; and the rudeness of physicians, 
lawyers, and parsons, however dignified or distinguished, affords 

15 such pleasant stories to divert private companies, and some- 
times the public. 

I come now to the beautiful part of the creation, who, in 
the sense I here use the word, I am assured can hardly (for 
the most part) be said to have any education. 

20 As to the counterpart of my country squire, the country 
gentlewoman, I apprehend, that, except in the article of the 
dancing-master, and perhaps in that of being barely able to 
read and write, there is very little difference between the edu- 
cation of many a squire's daughter, and that of his dairymaid, 

25 who is most likely her principal companion, nay, the little 
difference which there is, I am afraid, not in the favour of the 
former ; who, by being constantly flattered with her beauty 
and her wealth, is made the vainest and most selfconceited 
thing alive, at the same time, that such care is taken to instil 

30 into her the principles of bashfulness and timidity, that she 
becomes ashamed and afraid of she knows not what. 

If by any chance this poor creature drops afterwards, as it 
were, into the world, how absurd must be her behaviour ! If 



CONTEMPORARY EDUCATION 121 

a man looks at her, she is confounded ; and if he speaks to 
her, she is frightened out of her wits. She acts, in short, 
as if she thought the whole sex was engaged in a conspiracy 
to possess themselves of her person and fortune. 

This poor girl, it is true, however she may appear to her 5 
own sex, especially if she is handsome, is rather an object of 
compassion, than of just ridicule ; but what shall we say when 
time or marriage have carried off all this bashfulness and fear, 
and when ignorance, aukwardness, and rusticity, are embellished 
with the same degree, though perhaps not the same kind of 10 
affectation, which are to be found in a court. Here sure is a 
plentiful source of all that various humour which we find in 
the character of a country gentlewoman. 

All this, I apprehend, will be readily allowed ; but to deny 
good- breeding to the town lady, may be the more dangerous 15 
attempt. Here, besides the professors of reading, writing, 
and dancing, the French and Italian masters, the music mas- 
ter, and of modern times, the whist master, all concur in 
forming this character. The manners master alone, I am 
afraid is omitted. And what is the consequence? not only 20 
bashfulness and fear are entirely subdued, but modesty and 
discretion are taken off at the same time. So far from running 
away from, she runs after, the men ; and instead of blushing 
when a modest man looks at her, or speaks to her, she can 
bear, without any such emotion, to stare an impudent fellow 25 
in the face, and sometimes to utter what, if he be not very 
impudent -indeed, may put him to the blush. — Hence all 
those agreeable ingredients which form the humour of a 
rampant woman of — the town. 

I cannot quit this part of my subject, in which I have been 30 
obliged to deal a little more freely than I am inclined with 
the loveliest part of the creation, without preserving my own 
character of good-breeding, by saying that this last excess, is 



122 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

by much the most rare ; and that every individual among my 
female readers, either is already, or may be, when she pleases, 
an example of a contrary behaviour. 

The second general reason why humour so much abounds 
5 in this nation, seems to me to arise from the great number of 
people, who are daily raised by trade to the rank of gentry, 
without having had any education at all ; or, to use no improper 
phrase, without having served an apprenticeship to this calling. 
But I have dwelt so long on the other branch, that I have no 

lo room at present to animadvert on this ; nor is it indeed neces- 
sary I should, since most readers with the hints I have already 
given them, will easily suggest to themselves, a great number 
of humorous characters with which the public have been fur- 
nished this way. I shall conclude by wishing, that this excellent 

15 source of humour may still continue to flow among us, since, 
though it may make us a little laughed at, it will be sure to 
make us the envy of all the nations of Europe. 



XXX 
AN ESSAY ON CONVERSATION 

Man is generally represented as an animal formed for and 
deUghting in society : in this state alone, it is said, his various 

20 talents can be exerted, his numberless necessities relieved, the 
dangers he is exposed to can be avoided, and many of the 
pleasures he eagerly affects, enjoyed. If these assertions be, 
as I think they are, undoubtedly and obviously certain, those 
few who have denied man to be a social animal, have left us 

25 these two solutions of their conduct : either that there are 
men as bold in denial as can be found in assertion ; and as 
Cicero says, there is no absurdity which some philosopher 
or other hath not asserted ; so we may say, there is no truth 



AN ESSAY ON CONVERSATION 123 

so glaring, that some have not denied it. Or else ; that these 
rejectors of society borrow all their information from their 
own savage dispositions, and are indeed themselves, the only 
exceptions to the above general rule. 

But to leave such persons to those who have thought them 5 
more worthy of an answer ; there are others who are so seemingly 
fond of this social state, that they are understood absolutely to 
confine it to their own species ; and, entirely excluding the tamer 
and gentler, the herding and flocking parts of the creation, from 
all benefits of it, to set up this as one grand general distinction, 10 
between the human and the brute species. 

Shall we conclude this denial of all society to the nature of 
brutes, which seems to be in defiance of every day's observation, 
to be as bold, as the denial of it to the nature of men? Or, 
may we not more justly derive the error from an improper 15 
understanding of this word society in too confined and special 
a sense ? In a word ; do those who utterly deny it to the 
brutal nature, mean any other by society than conversation? 

Now if we comprehend them in this sense, as I think we 
very reasonably may, the distinction appears to me to be truly 20 
just; for though other animals are not without all use of 
society, yet this noble branch of it seems, of all the inhab- 
itants of this globe, confined to man only ; the narrow power 
of communicating some few ideas of lust, or fear, or anger, 
which may be observable in brutes, falling infinitely short of 25 
what is commonly meant by conversation, as may be deduced 
from the origination of the word itself, the only accurate guide 
to knowledge. The primitive and Hteral sense of this word 
is, I apprehend, to turn round together; and in its more copi- 
ous usage we intend by it, that reciprocal interchange of ideas, 30 
by which truth is examined, things are, in a manner, turned 
rou?id, and sifted, and all our knowledge communicated to 
each other. 



124 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

In this respect man stands, I conceive, distinguished from 
and superior to all other earthly creatures : it is this privilege 
which, while he is inferior in strength to some, in swiftness 
to others ; without horns, or claws, or tusks to attack them, or 
5 even to defend himself against them, hath made him master 
of them all. Indeed, in other views, however vain men may 
be of their abilities, they are greatly inferior to their animal 
neighbors. With what envy must a swine, or a much less 
voracious animal, be survey'd by a glutton ; and how con- 

lo temptible must the talents of other sensuahsts appear, when 
oppos'd, perhaps, to some of the lowest and meanest of brutes : 
but in conversation man stands alone, at least in this part of 
the creation ; he leaves all others behind him at his first start, 
and the greater progress he makes, the greater distance is 

15 between them. 

Conversation is of three sorts. Men are said to converse 
with God, with themselves, and with one another. The two 
first of these have been so liberally and excellently spoken to 
by others, that I shall, at present, pass them by, and confine 

20 myself, in this essay, to the third only : since it seems to me 
amazing, that this grand business of our lives, the foundation 
of every thing, either useful or pleasant, should have been so 
slightly treated of; that while there is scarce a profession or 
handicraft in life, however mean and contemptible, which is 

25 not abundantly furnished with proper rules to the attaining 
its perfection, men should be left almost totally in the dark, 
and without the least light to direct, or any guide to conduct 
them in the proper exerting of those talents, which are the 
noblest privilege of human nature, and productive of all 

30 rational happiness ; and the rather as this power is by no 
means self-instructed, and in the possession of the artless and 
ignorant, is of so mean use, that it raises them very little above 
those animals who are void of it. 



AN ESSAY ON CONVERSATION 1 25 

As conversation is a branch of society, it follows, that it can 
be proper to none who is not in his nature social. Now society 
is agreeable to no creatures who are not inoffensive to each 
other; and we therefore observe in animals who are entirely 
guided by nature, that it is cultivated by such only, while those 5 
of more noxious disposition addict themselves to solitude, and, 
unless when prompted by lust, or that necessary instinct 
implanted in them by nature, for the nurture of their young, 
shun as much as possible the society of their own species. If 
therefore there should be found some human individuals of so 10 
savage a habit, it would seem they were not adapted to society, 
and consequently, not to conversation : nor would any incon- 
venience ensue the admittance of such exceptions, since it 
would by no means impeach the general rule of man's being 
a social animal ; especially when it appears (as is sufficiently 1 5 
and admirably proved by my friend, the author of An Enquiry 
ifito Happiness) * that these men live a constant opposition to 
their own nature, and are no less monsters than the most wan- 
ton abortions, or extravagant births. 

Again ; if society requires that its members should be 20 
inoffensive, so the more useful and beneficial they are to each 
other, the more suitable are they to the social nature, and 
more perfectly adapted to its institution : for all creatures 
seek their own happiness, and society is therefore natural to 
any, because it is naturally productive of this happiness. To 25 
render therefore any animal social is to render it inoffensive ; 
an instance of which is to be seen in those the ferocity of 
whose nature can be tamed by man. And here the reader 
may observe a double distinction of man from the more savage 
animals by society, and from the social by conversation. 30 

But if men were meerly inoffensive to each other, it seems 
as if society and conversation would be meerly indifferent; 

* The Treatise here mentioned is not yet pubhc. 



126 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

and that in order to make it desirable by a sensible being, it is 
necessary we should go farther, and propose some positive 
good to ourselves from it; and this presupposes not only 
negatively, our not receiving any hurt ; but positively, our 
5 receiving some good, some pleasure or advantage from each 
other in it, something which we could not find in an unsocial 
and solitary state : otherwise we might cry out with the right 
honourable poet ; * 

Give us our Wildness and our Woods, 
lo Our Htits and Caves again. 

The art of pleasing or doing good to one another is therefore 
the art of conversation. It is this habit which gives it all its 
value. And as man's being a social animal (the truth of which 
is incontestably proved by that excellent author of An Enquiry, 

1 5 &c. I have above cited) presupposes a natural desire or tend- 
ency this way, it will follow, that we can fail in attaining 
this truly desirable end from ignorance only in the means ; 
and how general this ignorance is, may be, with some proba- 
bility, inferred from our want of even a word to express this 

2o art by : that which comes the nearest to it, and by which, 
perhaps, we would sometimes intend it, being so horribly and 
barbarously corrupted, that it contains at present scarce a 
simple ingredient of what it seems originally to have been 
designed to express. 

25 The word I mean is good b7'eeding ; a word, I apprehend, 
not at first confined to externals, much less to any particu- 
lar dress or attitude of the body : nor were the qualifications 
expressed by it to be furnished by a milHner, a taylor, or a 
perriwig-maker ; no, nor even by a dancing-master himself. 

30 According to the idea I myself conceive from this word, I 
should not have scrupled to call Socrates a well-bred man, 

* The Duke of Buckins:ha7n. 



AN ESSAY ON CONVERSATION 12/ 

though I believe he was very Httle instructed by any of the 
persons I have above enumerated. In short, by good breeding 
(notwithstanding the corrupt use of the word in a very differ- 
ent sense) I mean the art of pleasing, or contributing as much 
as possible to the ease and happiness of those with whom you 5 
converse. I shall contend therefore no longer on this head : 
for whilst my reader clearly conceives the sense in which I use 
this word, it will not be very material whether I am right or 
wrong in its original application. 

Good breedifig then, or the art of pleasing in conversation, le 
is expressed two different ways, viz. in our actions and our 
words, and our conduct in both may be reduced to that con- 
cise, comprehensive rule in scripture ; Do imto all men as yoic 
would they should do unto you. Indeed, concise as this rule is, 
and plain as it appears, what are all treatises on ethics, but 15 
comments upon it? And whoever is well-read in the book of 
nature, and hath made much observation on the actions of men, 
will perceive so few capable of judging, or rightly pursuing 
their own happiness, that he will be apt to conclude that some 
attention is necessary (and more than is commonly used) to 20 
enable men to know truly, what they would have do7ie unto 
them, or at least, what it would be their interest to have done. 

If therefore men, through weakness or inattention, often err 
in their conceptions of what would produce their own happi- 
ness, no wonder they should miss in the application of what 25 
will contribute to that of others; and thus we may, without 
too severe a censure on their inclinations, account for that 
frequent failure in true good breeding, which daily experience 
gives us instances of. 

Besides, the commentators have well paraphrased on the 30 
abovementioned divine rule, that it is, to do unto men what 
you. would they, if they were in your situation and circum- 
stances, AND YOU IN THEIRS, should do uuto you : and as this 



128 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

comment is necessary to be observed in ethics, so it is particu- 
larly useful in this our art, where the degree of the person is 
always to be considered, as we shall explain more at large 
hereafter. 
5 We see then a possibility for a man well disposed to this 
golden rule, without some precautions, to err in the practice ; 
nay, even good-nature itself, the very habit of mind most 
essential to furnish us with true good breeding, the latter so 
nearly resembling the former, that it hath been called, and 
lo with the appearance at least of propriety, a.rt[fic\a\ good /lafure. 
This excellent quality itself sometimes shoots us beyond the 
mark, and shews the truth of those lines in Horace : 

Insani sapiens nomen ferat^ cequus iniqui, 
Ultra quant satis est^ Virttitetjt si petat ipsain. 

1 5 Instances of this will be naturally produced where we shew the 
deviations from those rules, which we shall now attempt to lay 
down. 

As this good breeding is the art of pleasing, it will be first 
necessary, with the utmost caution, to avoid hurting or giving 

2o any offense to those with whom we converse. And here we 
are surely to shun any kind of actual disrespect, or affront to 
their persons, by insolence, which is the severest attack that 
can be made on the pride of man, and of which Florus seems 
to have had no inadequate opinion, when speaking of the second 

25 Tarquin, he says; In omnes superhia (^qucB Crudelitate gravior 
est bonis) grassatus; " He trod on all with insolence, which 
sits heavier on men of great minds than cruelty itself." If 
there is any temper in man which more than all others dis- 
qualifies him for society, it is this insolence or haughtiness, 

30 which, blinding a man to his own imperfections, and giving 
him a hawk's quick-sightedness to those of others, raises in 
him that contempt for his species, which inflates the cheeks, 
erects the head, and stiffens the gaite of those strutting animals 



AN ESSAY ON CONVERSATION 129 • 

who sometimes stalk in assemblies, for no other reason, but to 
shew in their gesture and behaviour the disregard they have 
for the company. Though to a truly great and philosophical 
mind, it is not easy to conceive a more ridiculous exhibition 
than this puppet ; yet to others he is little less than a nusance ; 5 
for contempt is a murtherous weapon, and there is this dif- 
ference only between the greatest and weakest men, when 
attacked by it ; that, in order to wound the former, it must be 
just ; whereas without the shields of wisdom and philosophy, 
which God knows are in the possession of very few, it wants 10 
no justice to point it; but is certain to penetrate, from what- 
ever corner it comes. It is this disposition which inspires the 
empty Cacus to deny his acquaintance, and overlook men of 
merit in distress; and the little, silly, pretty Phillida^ or FooUda, 
to stare at the strange creatures round her. It is this temper 15 
which constitutes the supercilious eye, the reserved look, the 
distant bowe, the scornful leer, the affected astonishment, the 
loud whisper, ending in a laugh directed full in the teeth of 
another. Hence spring, in short, those numberless offenses 
given too frequently, in public and private assemblies, by per- 20 
sons of weak understandings, indelicate habits, and so hungry 
and foul-feeding a vanity, that it wants to devour whatever 
comes in its way. Now, if good breeding be what we have 
endeavoured to prove it, how foreign, and indeed how oppo- 
site to it, must such a behaviour be? And can any man call 25 
a duke or a dutchess who wears it, well-bred? or are they not 
more justly entitled to those inhuman names which they them- 
selves allot to the lowest vulgar? But behold a more pleasing 

picture on the reverse. See the Earl of C noble in his 

birth, splendid in his fortune, and embellished with every 30 
endowment of mind ; how affable, how condescending ! him- 
self the only one who seems ignorant that he is in every way 
the greatest person in the room. 



130 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

But it is not sufificient to be inoffensive, we must be prof- 
itable servants to each other : we are, in the second place, to 
proceed to the utmost verge in paying the respect due to others. 
We had better go a little too far than stop short in this particu- 
5 lar. My Lord Shaftsbiiry hath a pretty observation, that the 
beggar, in addressing to a coach with, my Lord, is sure not 
to offend, even though there be no lord there ; but, on the 
contrary, should plain sir fly in the face of a nobleman, what 
must be the consequence ? And indeed, whoever considers the 

lo bustle and contention about j^recedence, the pains and labours 
undertaken, and sometimes the prices given, for the smallest 
title or mark of pre-eminence, and the visible satisfaction 
betray'd in its enjoyment, may reasonably conclude this is a 
matter of no small consequence. The truth is, we live in a 

15 world of common men, and not of philosophers; for one of 
these, when he appears (which is very seldom) among us, is 
distinguished, and very properly too, by the name of an odd 
fellow : for what is it less than extream oddity to despise what 
the generality of the world think the labour of their whole lives 

20 well employed in procuring : we are therefore to adapt our 
behaviour to the opinion of the generality of mankind, and 
not to that of a few odd fellows. It would be tedious, and 
perhaps impossible, to specify every instance, or to lay down 
exact rules for our conduct in every minute particular. How- 

25 ever, I shall mention some of the chief which most ordinarily 
occur, after premising, that the business of the whole is no 
more than to convey to others an idea of your esteem of 
them, which is indeed the substance of all the compliments, 
ceremonies, presents, and whatever passes between well-bred 

30 people. And here I shall lay down these positions. 

First, that all meer ceremonies exist mfor?7i only, and have 
in them no substance at all : but being imposed by the laws 
of custom, become essential to good breeding, from those 



AN ESSAY ON CONVERSATION 131 

high-flown comphments paid to the Eastern monarchs, and 
which pass between Chinese mandarines, to those coarser 
ceremonials in use between English farmers and Dutch boors. 

Secondly, that these ceremonies, poor as they are, are of 
more consequence than they at first appear, and, in reality, 5 
constitute the only external difference between man and man. 
Thus, His Grace, Right Honourable, My Lord, Right Rev- 
erend, Reverend, Honourable, Sir, Esquire, Mr. &c. have in 
a philosophical sense, no meaning, yet are, perhaps, politically 
essential, and must be preserved by good breeding; because, 10 

Thirdly, they raise an expectation in the person by law 
and custom entitled to them, and who will consequently be 
displeased with the disappointment. 

Now, in order to descend minutely into any rules for good 
breeding, it will be necessary to lay some scene, or to throw 15 
our disciple into some particular circumstance. We will begin 
then with a visit in the country ; and as the principal actor on 
this occasion is the person who receives it, we will, as briefly 
as possible, lay down some general rules for his conduct; 
marking, at the same time, the principal deviations we have 20 
observed on these occasions. 

When an expected guest arrives to dinner at your house, if 
your equal, or indeed not greatly your inferior, he should be 
sure to find your family in some order, and yourself dress'd 
and ready to receive him at your gate with a smiling counte- 25 
nance. This infuses an immediate cheerfulness into your guest, 
and perswades him of your esteem and desire of his company. 
Not so is the behaviour of Polysperchojt, at whose gate you are 
obliged to knock a considerable time before you gain admit- 
tance. At length, the door being opened to you by a maid, 30 
or some improper servant, who wonders where the devil all 
the men are ; and being asked if the gentleman is at home, 
answers, She believes so ; you are conducted into a hall, or 



132 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

back parlour, where you stay some time, before the gentleman, 
in dishabille from his study or his garden, waits upon you, asks 
pardon, and assures you he did not expect you so soon. 

Your guest, being introduced into a drawing-room, is, after 
5 the first ceremonies, to be asked whether he will refresh him- 
self after his journey, before dinner, (for which he is never to 
stay longer than the usual or fixed hour). But this request is 
never to be repeated oftner than twice, [not] in imitation of 
Chalepus^ who, as if hired by a physician, crams wine in a 

10 morning down the throats of his most temperate friends, 
their constitutions being not so dear to them as their present 
quiet. 

When dinner is on the table, and the ladies have taken their 
places, the gentlemen are to be introduced into the eating- 

15 room, where they are to be seated with as much seeming indif- 
ference as possible, unless there be any present whose degrees 
claim an undoubted precedence. As to the rest, the general 
rules of precedence are by marriage, age, and profession. 
Lastly ; in placing your guests, regard is rather to be had to 

20 birth than fortune : for though purse-pride is forward enough 
to exalt itself, it bears a degradation with more secret comfort 
and ease than the former, as being more inwardly satisfied with 
itself, and less apprehensive of neglect or contempt. 

The order of helping your guests is to be regulated by that 

25 of placing them : but here I must with great submission rec- 
ommend to the lady at the upper end of the table, to dis- 
tribute her favours as equally, and as impartially as she can. 
I have sometimes seen a large dish of fish extend no farther 
than to the fifth person, and a haunch of venison lose all its 

30 fat before half the table had tasted it. 

A single request to eat of any particular dish, how elegant 
soever, is the utmost I allow. I strictly prohibit all earnest 
solicitations, all complaints that you have no appetite, which 



AN ESSAY ON CONVERSATION 133 

are sometimes little less than burlesque, and always impertinent 
and troublesome. 

And here, however low it may appear to some readers, as I 
have known omissions of this kind give offense, and sometimes 
make the offenders, who have been very well-meaning persons, 5 
ridiculous, I cannot help mentioning the ceremonial of drink- 
ing healths at table, which is always to begin with the lady's, 
and next the master's of the house. 

When dinner is ended, and the ladies retired, though I do 
not hold the master of the feast obliged to fuddle himself 10 
through complacence ; and indeed it is his own fault generally, 
if his company be such as would desire it, yet he is to see that 
the bottle circulate sufficiently to afford every person present a 
moderate quantity of wine, if he chuses it; at the same time 
permitting those who desire it, either to pass the bottle, or 15 
to fill their glass as they please. Indeed, the beastly custom 
of besotting, and ostentatious contention for pre-eminence in 
their cups, seems at present pretty well abolished among the 
better sort of people. Yet Me thus still remains, who measures 
the honesty and understanding of mankind by the capacious- 20 
ness of their swallow ; who sings forth the praises of a bumper, 
and complains of the light in your glass ; and at whose table 
it is as difficult to preserve your senses, as to preserve your 
purse at a gaming table. On the other side, Sophronus eyes 
you carefully whilst you are filling out his liquor. The bottle 25 
as surely stops when it comes to him, as your chariot at Temple- 
Bar ; and it is almost as impossible to carry a pint of wine 
from his house, as to gain the love of a reigning beauty, or 
borrow a shilling of P W . 

But to proceed. After a reasonable time, if your guest 30 
intends staying with you the whole evening, and declines the 
bottle, you may propose play, walking, or any other amuse- 
ment ; but these are to be but barely mentioned, and offered 



134 



SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 



to his choice with all indifference on your part. What person 
can be so dull as not to perceive in Agyrtes a longing to pick 
your pockets? or in Aiazon, a desire to satisfy his own vanity in 
shewing you the rarities of his house and gardens ? When your 

5 guest offers to go, there should be no solicitations to stay, 
unless for the whole night, and that no farther than to give him 
a moral assurance of his being welcome so to do : no assertions 
that he shan't go yet ; no laying on violent hands ; no private 
orders to servants, to delay providing the horses or vehicles ; like 

lo Desmophylax, who never suffers any one to depart from his 
house without entitling him to an action of false imprisonment. 
Let us now consider a little the part which the visitor him- 
self is to act. And first, he is to avoid the two extremes of 
being too early, or too late, so as neither to surprize his friend 

15 unawares or unprovided, nor detain him too long in expecta- 
tion. Orthrius, who hath nothing to do, disturbs your rest in 
a morning ; and the frugal Chronophidiis, lest he should waste 
some minutes of his precious time, is sure to spoil your dinner. 
The address at your arrival should be as short as possible, 

20 especially when you visit a superior ; not imitating Phlenaphius^ 
who would stop his friend in the rain, rather than omit a single 
bowe. 

Be not too observant of trifling ceremonies, such as rising, 
sitting, walking first in or out of the room, except with one 

25 greatly your superior ; but when such a one offers you prece- 
dence, it is uncivil to refuse it : of which I will give you the 
following instance. An English nobleman being in France, 
was bid by Lewis XIV. to enter his coach before him, which 
he excused himself from ; the king then immediately mounted, 

30 and ordering the door to be shut, drove on, leaving the noble- 
man behind him. 

Never refuse anything offered you out of civility, unless in 
preference of a lady, and that no oftner than once ; for nothing 



AN ESSAY ON CONVERSATION 135 

is more truly good breeding, than to avoid being trouble- 
some. Though the taste and humour of the visitor is to be 
chiefly considered, yet is some regard likewise to be had to 
that of the master of the house ; for otherwise your company 
will be rather a penance than a pleasure. Methusus plainly 5 
discovers his visit to be paid to his sober friend's bottle ; nor 
will Philopasus abstain from cards, though he is certain they 
are agreeable only to himself ; whilst the slender Leptines gives 
his fat entertainer a sweat, and makes him run the hazard of 
breaking his wind up his own mounts. 10 

If conveniency allows your staying longer than the time 
proposed, it may be civil to offer to depart, lest your stay may 
be incommodious to your friend : but if you perceive the con- 
trary, by his solicitations, they should be readily accepted ; 
without tempting him to break these rules we have above laid 15 
down for him ; causing a confusion in his family, and among 
his servants, by preparations for your departure. Lastly, when 
you are resolved to go, the same method is to be observed 
which I have prescribed at your arrival. No tedious cere- 
monies of taking leave : not like Hyperphylus^ who bowes and 20 
kisses, and squeezes by the hand as heartily, and wishes you as 
much health and happiness, when he is going a journey home 
of ten miles, from a common acquaintance, as if he was leaving 
his nearest friend or relation on a voyage to the East-Indies. 

Having thus briefly considered our reader in the circum- 25 
stance of a private visit, let us now take him into a public 
assembly, where, as more eyes will be on his behaviour, it 
cannot be less his interest to be instructed. We have indeed 
already formed a general picture of the chief enormities com- 
mitted on these occasions, we shall here endeavour to explain 30 
more particularly the rules of an opposite demeanour, which 
we may divide into three sorts, viz. our behaviour to our . 
superiours, to our equals, and to our inferiours. 



136 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

In our behaviour to our superiours two extremes are to be 
avoided, namely, an abject and base servility, and an impu- 
dent and encroaching freedom. When the well-born Hyper- 
dulus approaches a nobleman in any public place, you would 

5 be persuaded he was one of the meanest of his domestics ; his 
cringes fall little short of prostration ; and his whole behaviour 
is so mean and servile, that an Eastern monarch would not 
require more humiliation from his vassals. On the other side ; 
Afiaschyntus, whom fortunate accidents, without any preten- 

10 sions from his birth, have raised to associate with his betters, 
shakes my lord duke by the hand, with a familiarity savouring 
not only of the most perfect intimacy, but the closest alliance. 
The former behaviour properly raises our contempt, the latter 
our disgust. Hyperdulus seems worthy of wearing his lord- 

15 ship's livery; Anaschyntus deserves to be turned out of his 
service for his impudence. Between these two is that golden 
mean, which declares a man ready to acquiesce in allowing the 
respect due to a title by the laws and customs of his country, 
but impatient of any insult, and disdaining to purchase the 

20 intimacy with, and favour of a superior, at the expence of con- 
science or honour. As to the question, who are our superiours ? 
I shall endeavour to ascertain them, when I come, in the second 
place, to mention our behaviour to our equals. The first instruc- 
tion on this head, being carefully to consider who are such : 

25 every little superiority of fortune or profession being too apt 
to intoxicate men's minds, and elevate them in their own 
opinion, beyond their merit or pretensions. Men are superior 
to each other in this our country by title, by birth, by rank in 
profession, and by age ; very little, if any, being to be allowed 

30 to fortune, though so much is generally exacted by it, and 
commonly paid to it. Mankind never appear to me in a more 
despicable light than when I see them, by a simple as well as 
mean servility, voluntarily concurring in the adoration of riches, 



AN ESSAY ON CONVERSATION 137 

without the least benefit or prospect from them. Respect and 
deference are perhaps justly demandable of the obliged, and 
may be, with some reason at least, from expectation, paid to 
the rich and liberal from the necessitious : but that men should 
be allured by the glittering of wealth only, to feed the insolent 5 
pride of those who will not in return feed their hunger ; that 
the sordid niggard should find any sacrifices on the altar of 
his vanity, seems to arise from a blinder idolatry, and a more 
bigotted and senseless superstition, than any which the sharp 
eyes of priests have discovered in the human mind. 10 

All gentlemen, therefore, who are not raised above each 
other by title, birth, rank in profession, age, or actual obliga- 
tion, being to be considered as equals, let us take some lessons 
for their behaviour to each other in public, from the following 
examples; in which we shall discern as well what we are to 15 
elect, as what we are to avoid. Authades is so absolutely 
abandoned to his own humour, that he never gives it up on 
any occasion. If Seraphijia herself, whose charms one would 
imagine should infuse alacrity into the limbs of a cripple 
sooner than the Bath waters, was to offer herself for his part- 20 
ner, he would answer. He never dmiced^ even though the ladies 
lost their ball by it. Nor doth this denial arise from inca- 
pacity ; for he was in his youth an excellent dancer, and still 
retains sufficient knowledge of the art, and sufficient abilities 
in his limbs to practice it; but from an affectation of gravity, 25 
which he will not sacrifice to the eagerest desire of others. 
Dyskolus hath the same aversion to cards ; and though com- 
petently skilled in all games, is by no importunities to be pre- 
vailed on to make a third at ombre, or a fourth at whisk and 
quadrille. He will suffer any company to be disappointed of 30 
their amusement, rather than submit to pass an hour or two a 
little disagreeably to himself. The refusal of Philautus is not 
so general : he is very ready to engage, provided you will 



138 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

indulge him in his favourite game, but it is impossible to per- 
svvade him to any other. I should add, both these are men of 
fortune, and the consequences of loss or gain, at the rate they 
are desired to engage, very trifling and inconsiderable to them. 
5 The rebukes these people sometimes meet with, are no 
more equal to their deserts than the honour paid to Charistus, 
the benevolence of whose mind scarce permits him to indulge 
his own will, unless by accident. Though neither his age 
nor understanding incline him to dance, nor will admit his 

10 receiving any pleasure from it, yet would he caper a whole 
evening, rather than a fine young lady should lose an oppor- 
tunity of displaying her charms by the several genteel and 
amiable attitudes which this exercise affords the skilful of that 
sex. And though cards are not adapted to his temper, he 

15 never once baulked the inclinations of others on that account. 

But as there are many who will not in the least instance 

mortify their own humour to purchase the satisfaction of all 

mankind, so there are some who make no scruple of satisfying 

their own pride and vanity, at the expence of the most cruel 

20 mortification of others. Of this kind is Agroicus, who seldom 
goes to an assembly, but he affronts half his acquaintance, by 
overlooking, or disregarding them. 

As this is a very common offence, and indeed much more 
criminal, both in its cause and effect, than is generally im- 

25 agined, I shall examine it very minutely ; and I doubt not but 
to make it appear, that there is no behaviour (to speak like a 
philosopher) more contemptible, nor, in a civil sense, more 
detestable than this. 

The first ingredient in this composition is pride, which, 

30 according to the doctrine of some, is the universal passion. 
There are others who consider it as the foible of great minds ; 
and others again, who will have it to be the very foundation 
of greatness ; and perhaps it may be of that greatness which 



AN ESSAY ON CONVERSATION 139 

we have endeavoured to expose in many parts of these works : 
but to real greatness, which is the union of a good heart with 
a good head, it is ahiiost diametrically opposite, as it generally 
proceeds from the depravity of both, and almost certainly 
from the badness of the latter. Indeed, a little observation 5 
will shew us, that fools are the most addicted to this vice ; 
and a little reflection will teach us, that it is incompatible with 
true understanding. Accordingly we see, that while the wisest 
of men have constantly lamented the imbecility and imper- 
fection of their own nature, the meanest and weakest have 10 
been trumpeting forth their own excellencies, and triumphing 
in their own sufficiency. 

Pride may, I think, be properly defined ; the pleasure we 
feel in conte^nplaiifig our own superior merit, on comparing it 
with that of others. That it arises from this supposed superi- 15 
ority is evident : for however great you admit a man's merit 
to be, if all men were equal to him, there would be no room 
for pride : now if it stop here, perhaps there is no enormous 
harm in it, or at least, no more than is common to all other 
folly ; every species of which is always liable to produce every 20 
species of mischief : folly I fear it is ; for should the man 
estimate rightly on this occasion, and the ballance should 
fairly turn on his side in this particular instance ; should he 
be indeed a greater orator, poet, general ; should he be more 
wise, witty, learned, young, rich, healthy, or in whatever 25 
instance he may excel one, or many, or all ; yet, if he examine 
himself thoroughly, will he ftnd no reason to abate his pride? 
Is the quality, in which -he is so eminent, so generally or justly 
esteemed; is it so entirely his own? Doth he not rather owe 
his superiority to the defects of others, than to his own per- 30 
fection? Or, lastly, can he find in no part of his character, a 
weakness which may counterpoise this merit, and which as 
justly, at least, threatens him with shame, as this entices him 



I40 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

to pride? I fancy, if such a scrutiny was made, (and nothing 
so ready as good sense to make it) a proud man would be as 
rare, as in reality he is a ridiculous monster. But suppose a 
man, on this comparison, is (as may sometimes happen) a little 
5 partial to himself, the harm is to himself, and he becomes only 
ridiculous from it. If I prefer my excellence in poetry to Pope 
or Young: if an inferior actor should, in his opinion, exceed 
Quin or Garrick ; or a sign-post painter set himself above 
the inimitable Hogarth; we become only ridiculous by our 

lo vanity ; and the persons themselves, who are thus humbled in 
the comparison, would laugh with more reason than any other. 
Pride therefore, hitherto, seems an inoffensive weakness' only, 
and entitles a man to no worse an appellation than that of a 
FOOL : but it will not stop here ; though fool be no perhaps 

15 desirable term, the proud man will deserve worse: he is 
not contented with the admiration he pays himself; he now 
becomes arrogant, and requires the same respect and pref- 
erence from the world ; for pride, though the greatest of flat- 
terers, is by no means a profitable servant to itself; it resembles 

20 the parson of the parish more than the 'squire, arid lives rather 
on the tithes, oblations, and contributions it collects from 
others, than on its own desmesne. As pride therefore is seldom 
without arrogance, so is this never to be found without inso- 
lence. The arrogant man must be insolent, in order to attain 

25 his own ends : and to convince and remind men of the superi- 
ority he affects, will naturally, by ill words, actions, and ges- 
tures, endeavour to throw the despised person at as much 
distance as possible from him. Hence proceeds that super- 
cilious look, and all those visible indignities with which men 

30 behave in public, to those whom they fancy their inferiors. 
Hence the very notable custom of deriding and often denying 
the nearest relations, friends, and acquaintance, in poverty and 
distress ; lest we should anywise be levelled with the wretches 



AN ESSAY ON CONVERSATION 141 

we despise, either in their own imagination, or in the conceit 
of any who should behold familiarities pass between us. 

But besides pride, folly, arrogance, and insolence, there is 
another simple (which vice never willingly leaves out of any 
composition) and that is ill-nature. A good-natured man may 5 
indeed (provided he is a fool) be proud, but arrogant and 
insolent he cannot be ; unless we will allow to such a still 
greater degree of folly, and ignorance of human nature ; which 
may indeed entitle them to forgiveness, in the benign lan- 
guage of scripture, because they know not what they do. 10 

For when we come to consider the effect of this behaviour 
on the person who suffers it, we may perhaps have reason 
to conclude, that murder is not a much more cruel injury. 
What is the consequence of this contempt ? or indeed, What 
is the design of it, but to expose the object of it to shame? a 15 
sensation as uneasy, and almost as intolerable, as those which 
arise from the severest pains inflicted on the body : a convul- 
sion of the mind (if I may so call it) which immediately pro- 
duces symptoms of universal disorder in the whole man ; which 
hath sometimes been attended with death itself, and to which 20 
death hath, by great multitudes, been with much alacrity pre- 
ferred. Now, what less than the highest degree of ill-nature 
can permit a man to pamper his own vanity at the price of 
another's shame? Is the glutton, who, to raise the flavour of 
his dish, puts some bird or beast to exquisite torment, more 25 
cruel to the animal, than this our proud man to his own 
species? 

This character then is a composition made up of those odious 
contemptible qualities, pride, folly, arrogance, insolence, and 
ill-nature. I shall dismiss it with some general observations, 30 
which will place it in so ridiculous a light, that a man must 
hereafter be possessed of a very considerable portion, either 
of folly or impudence, to assume it. 



142 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

First, it proceeds on one grand fallacy : for whereas this 
wretch is endeavouring, by a supercilious conduct, to lead the 
beholder into an opinion of his superiority to the despised 
person, he inwardly flatters his own vanity with a deceitful 
5 presumption, that this his conduct is founded on a general 
pre-conceived opinion of this superiority. 

Secondly, this caution to preserve it, plainly indicates a 
doubt, that the superiority of our own character is very slightly 
established ; for which reason we see it chiefly practiced by 

TO men who have the weakest pretensions to the reputation they 
aim at : and indeed, none was ever freer from it than that 
noble person whom we have already mentioned in this essay, 
and who can never be mentioned but with honour, by those 
who know him. 

15 Thirdly, this opinion of our superiority is commonly very 
erroneous. Who hath not seen a general behaving in this super- 
cilious manner to an officer of lower rank, who hath been greatly 
his superior in that very art, to his excellence in which the gen- 
eral ascribes all his merit. Parallel instances occur in every 

20 other art, science, or profession. 

Fourthly, men who excel others in trifling instances, fre- 
quently cast a supercilious eye on their superiors in the highest. 
Thus the least pretensions to pre-eminence in title, birth, riches, 
equipage, dress, ^c. constantly overlook the most noble endow- 

25 ments of virtue, honour, wisdom, sense, wit, and every other 
quality which can truly dignify and adorn a man. 

Lastly, the lowest and meanest of our species are the most 
strongly addicted to this vice. Men who are a scandal to their 
sex, and women who disgrace human nature : for the basest 

30 mechanic is so far from being exempt, that he is generally the 
most guilty of it. It visits ale-houses and gin-shops, and whis- 
tles in the empty heads of fidlers, mountebanks, and dancing- 
masters. 



AN ESSAY ON CONVERSATION 143 

To conclude a character, on which we have already dwelt 
longer than is consistent with the intended measure of this 
essay : this contempt of others is the truest symptom of a base 
and a bad heart. While it suggests itself to the mean and the 
vile, and tickles their little fancy on every occasion, it never 5 
enters the great and good mind, but on the strongest motives ; 
nor is it then a welcome guest, affording only an uneasy sensa- 
tion, and brings always with it a mixture of concern and com- 
passion. 

We will now proceed to inferior criminals in society. Theo- 10 
retus conceiving that the assembly is only met to see and admire 
him, is uneasy unless he engrosses the eyes of the whole com- 
pany. The giant doth not take more pains to be view'd ; and 
as he is unfortunately not so tall, he carefully deposits himself 
in the most conspicuous place: nor will that suffice, he must 15 
walk about the room, though to the great disturbance of the 
company; and if he can purchase general observation, at no 
less rate will condescend to be ridiculous ; for he prefers being 
laughed at, to being taken little notice of. 

On the other side, Dusopiiis is so bashful, that he hides 20 
himself in a corner ; he hardly bears being looked at, and never 
quits the first chair he lights upon, lest he should expose himself 
to public view. He trembles when you bowe to him at a dis- 
tance ; is shocked at hearing his own voice, and would almost 
swoon at the repetition of his name. 25 

The audacious A?iedes, who is extremely amorous in his incli- 
nations, never likes a woman, but his eyes ask her the question ; 
without considering the confusion he often occasions to the 
object : he ogles and languishes at every pretty woman in the 
room. As there is no law of morality which he would not break 30 
to satisfy his desires, so there is no form of civility which he 
doth not violate to communicate them. When he gets posses- 
sion of a woman's hand, which those of stricter decency never 



144 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

give him but with reluctance, he considers himself as its master. 
Indeed there is scarce a familiarity which he will abstain from, 
on the slightest acquaintance, and in the most publick place. 
Seraphina herself can make no impression on the rough tem- 
5 per of Agroicus ; neither her quality, nor her beauty, can exact 
the least complacence from him ; and he would let her lovely 
limbs ach, rather than offer her his chair : while the gentle 
Lyperus tumbles over benches, and overthrows tea-tables, to 
take up a fan or a glove : he forces you as a good parent doth 

10 his child, for your own good : he is absolute master of a lady's 
will, nor will allow her the election of standing or sitting in his 
company. In short, the impertinent civility of Lyperus is as 
troublesome, tho' perhaps not so offensive as the brutish rude- 
ness of Agroicus. 

15 Thus we have hinted at most of the common enormities 
committed in publick assemblies, to our equals ; for it would 
be tedious and difficult to enumerate all : nor is it needful ; 
since from this sketch we may trace all others, most of which, 
I believe, will be found to branch out from some of the par- 

20 ticulars here specified. 

I am now, in the last place, to consider our behaviour to our 
inferiors : in which condescension can never be too strongly 
recommended : for as a deviation on this side is much more 
innocent than on the other, so the pride of man renders us 

25 much less liable to it. For besides that we are apt to over-rate 
our own perfections, and undervalue the qualifications of our 
neighbours, we likewise set too high an esteem on the things 
themselves, and consider them as constituting a more essential 
difference between us than they really do. The qualities of 

30 the mind do, in reality, establish the truest superiority over one 
another ; yet should not these so far elevate our pride, as to 
inflate us with contempt, and make us look down on our fellow- 
creatures, as on the animals of an inferior order : but that the 



I 



I 



AN ESSAY ON CONVERSATION 145 

fortuitous accident of birth, the acquisition of wealth, with some 
outward ornaments of dress, should inspire men with an inso- 
lence capable of treating the rest of mankind with disdain, is 
so preposterous, that nothing less than daily experience could 
give it credit. 5 

If men were to be rightly estimated, and divided into sub- 
ordinate classes, according to the superior excellence of their 
several natures, perhaps the lowest class of either sex would be 
properly assigned to those two disgracers of the human species, 
common [ly] called a beau and a fine lady : for if we rate men 10 
by the faculties of the mind, in what degree must these stand? 
Nay, admitting the qualities of the body were to give the pre- 
eminence, how many of those whom fortune hath placed in 
the lowest station, must be ranked above them? If dress is 
their only title, sure even the monkey, if as well dressed, is on 15 
as high a footing as the beau. — But perhaps I shall be told, 
they challenge their dignity from birth : that is a poor and 
mean pretence to honour, when supported with no other. 
Persons who have no better claim to superiority, should be 
ashamed of this ; they are really a disgrace to those very 20 
ancestors from whom they would derive their pride, and are 
chiefly happy in this, that they want the very moderate por- 
tion of understanding which would enable them to despise 
themselves. 

And yet, who so prone to a contemptuous carriage as these 1 25 
I have myself seen a little female thing which they have called 
My Lady, of no greater dignity in the order of beings than a 
cat, and of no more use in society than a butterfly ; whose 
mien would not give even the idea of a gentlewoman, and 
whose face would cool the loosest libertine ; with a mind as 30 
empty of ideas as an opera, and a body fuller of diseases than an 
hospital. I have seen this thing express contempt to a woman 
who was an honour to her sex, and an ornament to the creation. 



146 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

To confess the truth, there is little danger of the possessor's 
ever undervaluing this titular excellence. Not that I would 
withdraw from it that deference which the policy of govern- 
ment hath assigned it. On the contrary, I have laid down the 
5 most exact compliance with this respect, as a fundamental in 
good-breeding ; nay, I insist only that we may be admitted to 
pay it ; and not treated with a disdain even beyond what the 
eastern monarchs shew to their slaves. Surely it is too high 
an elevation, when instead of treating the lowest human crea- 

10 ture, in a Christian sense, as our brethren ; we look down on 

such as are but one rank, in the civil order, removed from 

us, as unworthy to breathe even the same air, and regard the 

, most distant communication with them as an indignity and 

disgrace offered to ourselves. This is considering the differ- 

15 ence not in the individual, but in the very species; a height 
of insolence impious in a Christian society, and most absurd 
and ridiculous in a trading nation. 

I have now done with my first head, in which I have treated 
of good-breeding, as it regards our actions. I shall, in the 

20 next place, consider it with respect to our words ; and shall 
endeavour to lay down some rules, by observing which our 
well-bred man may, in his discourse as well as actions, contrib- 
ute to the happiness and well-being of society. 

Certain it is, that the highest pleasure which we are capa- 

25 ble of enjoying in conversation, is to be met with only in the 
society of persons whose understanding is pretty near on an 
equality with our own : nor is this equality only necessary to 
enable men of exalted genius, and extensive knowledge, to 
taste the sublimer pleasures of communicating their refined 

30 ideas to each other ; but it is likewise necessary to the infe- 
rior happiness of every subordinate degree of society, down to 
the very lowest. For instance ; we will suppose a conversation 
between Socrates, Plato^ Aristotle, and three dancing-masters. 



AN ESSAY ON CONVERSATION 147 

It will be acknowledged, I believe, that the heel sophists 
would be as little pleased with the company of the philosophers, 
as the philosophers with theirs. 

It would be greatly therefore for the improvement and hap- 
piness of conversation, if society could be formed on this 5 
equality : but as men are not ranked in this world by the dif- 
ferent degrees of their understanding, but by other methods, 
and consequently all degrees of understanding often meet in 
the same class, and must ex necessitate frequently converse 
together, the impossibility of accomplishing any such Utopian 10 
scheme very plainly appears. Here therefore is a visible but 
unavoidable imperfection in society itself. 

But as we have laid it down as a fundamental, that the essence 
of good-breeding is to contribute as much as possible to the ease 
and happiness of mankind, so will it be the business of our well- 15 
bred man to endeavour to lessen this imperfection to his utmost, 
and to bring society as near to a level at least as he is able. 

Now there are but two ways to compass this, viz. by raising 
the lower, and by lowering what is higher. 

Let us suppose then, that very unequal company I have 20 
before mentioned met : the former of these is apparently 
impracticable. Let Socrates, for instance, institute a discourse 
on the nature of the soul, or Plato reason on the native beauty 
of virtue, and Aristotle on his occult qualities. — What must 
become of our dancing-masters ? Would they not stare at one 25 
another with surprize? and, most probably, at our philosophers 
with contempt? Would they have any pleasure in such soci- 
ety ? or would they not rather wish themselves in a dancing- 
school, or a green-room at the play-house? What therefore 
have our philosophers to do, but to lower themselves to those 30 
who cannot rise to them? 

And surely there are subjects on which both can converse. 
Hath not Socrates heard of harmony? Hath not Plato, who 



148 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

draws virtue in the person of a fine woman, any idea of the 
gracefulness of attitude ? and hath not Aristotle himself written 
a book on motion? In short, to be a littTe serious, there are 
many topics on which they can at least be intelligible to each 
5 other. 

How absurd then must appear the conduct of Cenodoxits, 
who having had the advantage of a liberal education, and hav- 
ing made a pretty good progress in literature, is constantly 
advancing learned subjects in common conversation? He 

10 talks of the classics before the ladies ; and of Greek criticisms 
among fine gentlemen. What is this less than an insult on the 
company, over whom he thus affects a superiority, and whose 
time he sacrifices to his vanity? 

Wisely different is the amiable conduct of Sophronus ; who, 

15 though he exceeds the former in knowledge, can submit to 
discourse on the most trivial matters, rather than introduce 
such as his company are utter strangers to. He can talk of 
fashions and diversions among the ladies ; nay, can even con- 
descend to horses and dogs with country gentlemen. This gen- 

20 tleman, who is equal to dispute on the highest and abstrusest 
points, can likewise talk on a fan, or a horse-race ; nor had ever 
any one, who was not himself a man of learning, the least rea- 
son to conceive the vast knowledge of Sophronus, unless from 
the report of others. 

25 Let us compare these together. Cenodoxus proposes the 
satisfaction of his own pride from the admiration of others ; 
Sophronus thinks of nothing but their amusement. In the 
company of Cenodoxus^ every one is rendered uneasy, laments 
his own want of knowledge, and longs for the end of the dull 

30 assembly : with Sophronus all are pleased, and contented with 
themselves in their knowledge of matters which they find 
worthy the consideration of a man of sense. Admiration is 
involuntarily paid the former ; to the latter it is given joyfully. 



AN ESSAY ON CONVERSATION 149 

The former receives it with envy and hatred ; the latter enjoys 
it as the sweet fruit of good-will. The former is shunned, the 
latter courted by all. 

This behaviour in Cenodoxus may, in some measure, account 
for an observation we must have frequent occasion to make : 5 
that the conversation of men of very moderate capacities is 
often preferred to that of men of superior talents : in which 
the world act more wisely than at first they may seem ; for 
besides that backwardness in mankind to give their admiration, 
what can be duller, or more void of pleasure than discourses 10 
on subjects above our comprehension ! It is like listning to 
an unknown language ; and if such company is ever desired 
by us, it is a sacrifice to our vanity, which imposes on us to 
believe that we may by these means raise the general opinion 
of our own parts and knowledge, and not from that cheerful 15 
delight which is the natural result of an agreeable conversation. 

There is another very common fault, equally destructive of 
this delight, by much the same means ; though it is far from 
owing its original to any real superiority of parts and knowl- 
edge : this is discoursing on the mysteries of a particular pro- 20 
fession, to which all the rest of the company, except one or 
two, are utter strangers. Lawyers are generally guilty of this 
fault, as they are more confined to the conversation of one 
another ; and I have known a very agreeable company spoilt, 
where there have been two of these gentlemen present, who 25 
have seemed rather to think themselves in a court of justice, 
than in a mixed assembly of persons, met only for the enter- 
tainment of each other. 

But it is not sufficient that the whole company understand 
the topic of their conversation ; they should be likewise equally 30 
interested in every subject not tending to their general infor- 
mation or amusement ; for these are not to be postponed to 
the relation of private affairs, much less of the particular 



I50 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

grievance or misfortune of a single person. To bear a share 
in the afflictions of another is a degree of friendship not to be 
expected in a common acquaintance ; nor hath any man a 
right to indulge the satisfaction of a weak and mean mind by 
5 the comfort of pity, at the expence of the whole company's 
diversion. The inferior and unsuccessful members of the sev- 
eral professions are generally guilty of this fault ; for as they 
fail of the reward due to their great merit, they can seldom 
refrain from reviling their superiors, and complaining of their 

10 own hard and unjust fate. 

Farther ; as a man is not to make himself the subject of 
the conversation, so neither is he to engross the whole to him- 
self. As every man had rather please others by what he says 
than be himself pleased by what they say ; or, in other words, 

15 as every man is best pleased with the consciousness of pleas- 
ing ; so should all have an equal opportunity of aiming at it. 
This is a right which we are so offended at being deprived of, 
that though I remember to have known a man reputed a good 
companion, who seldom opened his mouth in company, unless 

20 to swallow his liquor ; yet I have scarce ever heard that appel- 
lation given to a very talkative person, even when he hath 
been capable of entertaining, unless he hath done this with 
buffoon'ry, and made the rest amends, by partaking of their 
scorn, together with their admiration and applause. 

25 A well-bred man therefore will not take more of the dis- 
course than falls to his share : nor in this will he shew any 
violent impetuosity of temper, or exert any loudness of voice, 
even in arguing : for the information of the company, and the 
conviction of his antagonist, are to be his apparent motives ; 

30 not the indulgence of his own pride, or an ambitious desire of 
victory ; which latter if a wise man should entertain, he will 
be sure to conceal with his utmost endeavour : since he must 
know, that to lay open his vanity in public, is no less absurd 



AN ESSAY ON CONVERSATION 15 1 

than to lay open his bosom to an enemy, whose drawn sword 
is pointed against it : for every man hath a dagger in his hand, 
ready to stab the vanity of another, wherever he perceives it. 

Having now shewn, that the pleasure of conversation must 
arise from the discourse being on subjects levelled to the 5 
capacity of the whole company ; from being on such in which 
every person is equally interested ; from every one's being 
admitted to his share in the discourse ; and lastly, from care- 
fully avoiding all noise, violence, and impetuosity; it might 
seem proper to lay down some particular rules for the choice 10 
of those subjects which are most likely to conduce to the 
cheerful delights proposed from this social communication : 
but as such an attempt might appear absurd, from the infinite 
variety, and perhaps too dictatorial in its nature, I shall con- 
fine myself to rejecting those topics only which seem most for- 15 
eign to this delight, and which are most likely to be attended 
with consequences rather tending to make society an evil, 
than to procure us any good from it. 

And first, I shall mention that which I have hitherto only 
endeavoured to restrain within certain bounds, namely, argu- 20 
ments : but which if they were entirely banished out of com- 
pany, especially from mixed assemblies, and where ladies 
make part of the society, it would, I believe, promote their 
happiness : they have been sometimes attended with blood- 
shed, generally with hatred from the conquered party towards 25 
his victor ; and scarce ever with conviction. Here I except 
jocose arguments, which often produce much mirth ; and seri- 
ous disputes between men of learning (when none but such 
are present) which tend to the propagation of knowledge, and 
the edification of the company. 30 

Secondly, slander ; which, however frequently used, or how- 
ever savory to the palate of ill-nature, is extremely pernicious. 
As it is often unjust, and highly injurious to the person 



152 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

slandered ; and always dangerous, especially in large and mixed 
companies ; where sometimes an undesigned offence is given 
to an innocent relation or friend of such person, who is thus 
exposed to shame and confusion, without having any right to 
5 resent the affront. Of this there have been very tragical 
instances ; and I have myself seen some very ridiculous ones, 
but which have given great pain, as well to the person 
offended, as to him who hath been the innocent occasion of 
giving the offence. 

10 Thirdly ; all general reflections on countries, religions, and 
professions, which are always unjust. If these are ever toler- 
able, they are only from the persons who with some pleasantry 
ridicule their own country. It is very common among us to 
cast sarcasms on a neighbouring nation, to which we have no 

15 other reason to bear an antipathy, than what is more usual 
than justifiable, because we have injured it : but sure such 
general satire is not founded on truth *: for I have known gen- 
tlemen of that nation possessed with every good quality which 
are to be wished in a man, or required in a friend. I remem- 

20 ber a repartee made by a gentleman of this country, which 
though it was full of the severest wit, the person to whom it 
was directed, could not resent, as he so plainly deserved it. 
He had with great bitterness inveighed against this whole 
people ; upon which, one of them who was present, very 

25 cooly answered, / 'dofi^t know^ sir, whether I have not more 
reasoft to be pleased with the compliment you pay 7?iy country, 
tha?i to be angry with ivhat you say against it ; since by your 
abusing us all so heavily, you have plainly implied you are not 
of it. This exposed the other to so much laughter, especially 

30 as he was not unexceptionable in his character, that I believe 
he was sufficiently punished for his ill-manner'd satire. 

Fourthly ; blasphemy, and irreverent mention of religion. 
I will not here debate what compliment a man pays to his 



AN ESSAY ON CONVERSATION 153 

own understanding, by the profession of infidelity ; it is suffi- 
cient to my purpose, that he runs a risque of giving the cru- 
ellest offence to persons of a different temper : for if a loyalist 
would be greatly affronted by hearing any indecencies offered 
to the person of a temporal prince, how much more bitterly 5 
must a man, who sincerely believes in such a being as the 
Almighty, feel any irreverence, or insult shewn to His name, 
His honour, or His institution? And notwithstanding the 
impious character of the present age, and especially of many 
among those whose more immediate business it is to lead 10 
men, as well by example as precept, into the ways of piety, 
there are still sufficient numbers left, who pay so honest and 
sincere a reverence to religion, as may give us a reasonable 
expectation of finding one at least of this stamp in every large 
company. 15 

A fifth particular to be avoided is indecency. We are not 
only to forbear the repeating such words as would give an 
immediate affront to a lady of reputation ; but the raising any 
loose ideas tending to the offence of that modesty, which if a 
young woman hath not something more than the affectation 20 
of, she is not worthy the regard even of a man of pleasure, 
provided he hath any delicacy in his constitution. How 
inconsistent with good-breeding it is to give pain and confu- 
sion to such, is sufficiently apparent ; all double-entendres, and 
obscene jests, are therefore carefully to be avoided before 25 
them. But suppose no ladies present, nothing can be meaner, 
lower, and less productive of rational mirth, than this loose 
conversation. For my own part, I cannot conceive how the 
idea of jest or pleasantry came ever to be annexed to one of 
our highest and most serious pleasures. Nor can I help observ- 30 
ing, to the discredit of such merriment, that it is commonly the 
last resource of impotent wit, the weak strainings of the lowest, 
silliest, and dullest fellows in the world. 



154 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

Sixthly ; you are to avoid knowingly mentioning any thing 
which may revive in any person the remembrance of some 
past accident ; or raise an uneasy reflection on a present mis- 
fortune, or corporeal blemish. To maintain this rule nicely, 
5 perhaps requires great delicacy ; but it is absolutely necessary 
to a well-bred man. I have observed numberless breaches of 
it; many, I believe, proceeding from negligence and inadvert- 
ency; yet I am afraid some may be too justly imputed to a 
malicious desire of triumphing in our own superior happiness 

lo and perfections : now when it proceeds from this motive, it is 
not easy to imagine any thing more criminal. 

Under this head I shall caution my well-bred reader against 
a common fault, much of the same nature ; which is mention- 
ing any particular quality as absolutely essential to either man 

15 or woman, and exploding all those who want it. This renders 
every one uneasy, who is in the least self-conscious of the 
defect. I have heard a boor of fashion declare in the presence 
of women remarkably plain, that beauty was the chief perfec- 
tion of that sex ; and an essential, without which no woman 

20 was worth regarding. A certain method of putting all those 
in the room, who are but suspicious of their defect that way, 
out of countenance. 

I shall mention one fault more, which is, not paying a 
proper regard to the present temper of the company, or the 

25 occasion of their meeting, in introducing a topic of conversa- 
tion, by which as great an absurdity is sometimes committed, 
as it would be to sing a dirge at a wedding, or an epithalamium 
at a funeral. 

Thus I have, I think, enumerated most of the principal 

30 errors which we are apt to fall into in conversation ; and 
though perhaps some particulars worthy of remark may have 
escaped me, yet an attention to what I have here said, 
may enable the reader to discover them. At least I am 



AN ESSAY ON CONVERSATION 155 

persuaded, that if the rules I have now laid down were strictly 
observed, our conversation would be more perfect, and the 
pleasure resulting from it purer, and more unsullied, than at 
present it is. 

But I must not dismiss this subject without some animad- 5 
versions on a particular species of pleasantry, which though 
I am far from being desirous of banishing from conversation, 
requires, most certainly, some reins. to govern, and some rule 
to direct it. The reader may perhaps guess, I mean raillery ; 
to which I may apply the fable of the Lap- Dog and the Ass : 10 
for while in some hands it diverts and dehghts us with its 
dexterity and gentleness ; in others, it paws, dawbs, offends, 
and hurts. 

The end of conversation being the happiness of mankind, 
and the chief means to procure their delight and pleasure; it 15 
follows, I think, that nothing can conduce to this end, which 
tends to make a man uneasy and dissatisfied with himself, or 
which exposes him to the scorn and contempt of others. I 
here except that kind of raillery therefore, which is concerned 
in tossing men out of their chairs, tumbling them into water, 20 
or any of those handicraft jokes which are exercised on those ' 
notable persons, commonly known by the name of buffoons. 
This I pass by, as well as all remarks on the genius of the 
great men themselves, who are (to fetch a phrase from school, 
a phrase not improperly mentioned on this occasion) great 25 
DABS at this kind of facetiousness. 

But leaving all such persons to expose human nature among 
themselves, I shall recommend to my well-bred man, who aims 
at raillery, the excellent character given of Horace by Persius. 

Omne vafer vitiu77t ridenti Flaccus amico 30 

Tangit^ et adniissus circiifn prcscordia ludit^ 
Callidus exaisso popiihun suspendere naso. 



156 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

Thus excellently rendered by the late ingenious translator of 
that obscure author. 

Yet cou'd shrewd Horace, with disportive Wit, 
Rally his Friend^ and tickle while he bit : 
5 Winning Access, he play'' d around the Heart, 

And gently touching, prick'' d the tainted Part. 
The Crowd he sneer'' dj but sneer'' d with such a Grace, 
It passed for downright Innocence of Face. 

The raillery which is consistent with good-breeding, is a 

10 gentle animadversion on some foible ; which while it raises a 
laugh in the rest of the company, doth not put the person ralhed 
out of countenance, or expose him to shame and contempt. On 
the contrary, the jest should be so delicate, that the object of 
it should be capable of joining in the mirth it occasions. 

15 All great vices therefore, misfortunes, and notorious blem- 
ishes of mind or body, are improper subjects of raillery. 
Indeed, a hint at such is an abuse and affront [which] is sure 
to give the person (unless he be one shameless and abandoned) 
pain and uneasiness, and should be received with contempt, 

20 instead of applause, by all the rest of the company. 

Again ; the nature and quality of the person are to be con- 
sidered. As to the first, some men will not bear any raillery 
at all. I remember a gentleman who declared, He never 7?iade 
a Jest, nor would ever take one. I do not indeed greatly 

25 recommend such a person for a companion; but at the same 
time, a well-bred man, who is to consult the pleasure and 
happiness of the whole, is not at liberty to make any one 
present uneasy. By the quality, I mean the sex, degree, pro- 
fession, and circumstances ; on which head I need not be 

30 very particular. With regard to the two former, all raillery 
on ladies and superiors should be extremely fine and gentle; 
and with respect to the latter, any of the rules I have above 



AN ESSAY ON CONVERSATION 157 

laid down, most of which are to be applied to it, will afford 
sufificient caution. 

Lastly. A consideration is to be had of the persons before 
whom we rally. A man will be justly uneasy at being reminded 
of those railleries in one company, which he would very 5 
patiently bear the imputation of in another. Instances on this 
head are so obvious, that they need not be mentioned. In 
short, the whole doctrine of raillery is comprized in this 
famous line. 

QUID de QUOQUE viro^ et cui dicas^ scepe caveto. 10 

Be cautious what j^« say^ OF whom audio whom. 

And now methinks I hear some one cry out, that such 
restrictions are, in effect, to exclude all raillery from conver- 
sation : and, to confess the truth, it is a weapon from which 
many persons will do wisely in totally abstaining; for it is 15 
a weapon which doth the more mischief, by how much the 
blunter it is. The sharpest wit therefore is only to be indulged 
the free use of it ; for no more than a very slight touch is to 
be allowed ; no hacking, nor bruising, as if they were to hew 
a Carcase for Hounds^ as Shakespear phrases it. 20 

Nor is it sufficient that it be sharp, it must be used likewise 
with the utmost tenderness and good-nature : and as the 
nicest dexterity of a gladiator is shewn in being able to hit 
without cutting deep, so is this of our rallier, who is rather to 
tickle than wound. 25 

True raillery indeed consists either in playing on pecca- 
dillo's, which, however they may be censured by some, are 
not esteemed as really blemishes in a character in a company 
where they are made the subject of mirth ; as too much free- 
dom with the bottle, or too much indulgence with women, b^c. 30 

Or, secondly, in pleasantly representing real good qualities 
in a false light of shame, and bantering them as ill ones. So 



158 ■ SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

generosity may be treated as prodigality ; oeconomy as avarice ; 
true courage as fool-hardiness ; and so of the rest. 

Lastly ; in ridiculing men for vices and faults which they 

are known to be free from. Thus the cowardice of A — le, the 

5 dulness of Ch^d, the unpoliteness of £> — ton, may be attacked 

without danger of o^ence; and thus Z^y/ — n may.be censured 

for whatever vice or folly you please to impute to him. 

And however limited these bounds may appear to some, 
yet, in skilful and witty hands, I have known raillery, thus 

10 confined, afford a very diverting, as well as inoffensive enter- 
tainment to the whole company. 

I shall conclude this essay with these two observations, 
which I think may be clearly deduced from what hath been 
said. 

15 First, that every person who indulges his ill-nature or vanity, 
at the expence of others ; and in introducing uneasiness, vex- 
ation, and confusion into society, however exalted or high- 
titled he may be, is thoroughly ill-bred. 

Secondly, that whoever, from the goodness of his disposition 

20 or understanding, endeavours to his utmost to cultivate the 
good-humour and happiness of others, and to contribute to 
the ease and comfort of all his acquaintance, however low in 
rank fortune may have placed him, or however clumsy he may 
be in his figure or demeanour, hath, in the truest sense of the 

25 word, a claim to good-breeding. 



AN ESSAY ON NOTHING 159 

XXXI 

AN ESSAY ON NOTHING 

The Introduction 

It is surprizing, that while such trifling matters employ the 
masterly pens of the present age, the great and noble subject 
of this essay should have passed totally neglected ; and the 
rather, as it is a subject to which the genius of many of those 
writers who have unsuccessfully applied themselves to politics, 5 
religion, &^c. is most peculiarly adapted. 

Perhaps their unwillingness to handle what is of such impor- 
tance, may not improperly be ascribed to their modesty; 
though they may not be remarkably addicted to this vice on 
every occasion. Indeed I have heard it predicated of some, 10 
whose assurance in treating other subjects hath been suffi- 
ciently notable, that they have blushed at this. For such is 
the awe with which this Nothing inspires mankind, that I 
beheve it is generally apprehended of many persons of very 
high character among us, that were title, power, or riches to 15 
allure them, they would stick at it. 

But whatever be the reason, certain it is, that except a hardy 
wit in the reign of Chm-les II. none ever hath dared to write on 
this subject. I mean openly and avowedly ; for it must be con- 
fessed, that most of our modern authors, however foreign the 20 
matter which they endeavour to treat may seem at their first 
setting out, they generally bring their work to this in the end. 

I hope, however, this attempt will not be imputed to me as 
an act of immodesty ; since I am convinced there are many 
persons in this kingdom, who are persuaded of my fitness for 25 
what I have undertaken. But as talking of a man's self is gen- 
erally suspected to arise from vanity, I shall, without any more 
excuse or preface, proceed to my essay. 



l6o SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

Sect. I. 

Of the Antiquity ^Nothing. 

There is nothing falser than that old proverb, which (like 
many other falsehoods) is in every one's mouth ; 

Ex Nihilo nihil Fit. 

Thus translated by Shakespeare, in Lear. 

5 Nothing can coine of Nothing. 

Whereas in fact, from Nothing proceeds every thing. And 
this is a truth confessed by the philosophers of all sects : the 
only point in controversy between them being, whether Some- 
thing made the world out of Nothing, or Nothing out of 

lo Something. A matter not much worth debating at present, 
since either will equally serve our turn. Indeed the wits of 
all ages seem to have ranged themselves on each side of this 
question, as their genius tended more or less to the spiritual 
or material substance. For those of the more spiritual species 

15 have inclined to the former, and those whose genius hath par- 
taken more of the chief properties of matter, such as soHdity, 
thickness, &^c. have embraced the latter. 

But whether Nothing was the artifex or materies only, it is 
plain in either case, it will have a right to claim to itself the 

20 origination of all things. 

And farther, the great antiquity of Nothing is apparent from 
its being so visible in the accounts we have of the beginning 
of every nation. This is very plainly to be discovered in the 
first pages, and sometimes books of all general historians ; and 

25 indeed, the study of this important subject fills up the whole 
life of an antiquary, it being always at the bottom of his 
enquiry, and is commonly at last discovered by him with infi- 
nite labour and pains. 



AN ESSAY ON NOTHING l6l 

Sect. II. 
Of the Nature of Nothing. 

Another falsehood which we must detect in the pursuit of 
this essay, is an assertion, That no otie can have an Idea of 
Nothing : But men who thus confidently deny us this idea, 
either grossly deceive themselves, or would impose a down- 
right cheat on the world : for so far from having none, I 5 
believe there are few who have not many ideas of it ; though 
they may mistake them for the idea of something. 

For instance; is there any one who has not an idea of* 
immaterial substance ? — Now what is immaterial substance, 
more than JVothing ? But here we are artfully deceived by the 10 
use of words : for were we to ask another what idea he had of 
immaterial matter, or unsubstantial substance, the absurdity of 
affirming it to be Something, would shock him, and he would 
immediately reply, it was Nothing. 

Some persons perhaps will say then, we have no idea of it : 15 
but as I can support the contrary by such undoubted author- 
ity, I shall, instead of trying to confute such idle opinions, 
proceed to shew, first, what Nothing is ; secondly, I shall dis- 
close the various kinds of Nothing ; and lastly, shall prove its 
great dignity, and that it is the end of every thing. 20 

It is extremely hard to define Nothing in positive terms, I 
shall therefore do it in negative. Nothing then is not Some- 
thing. And here I must object to a third error concerning it, 
which is, that it is in no place ; which is an indirect way of 

* The author would not be here . understood to speak against the 
doctrine of immateriahty, to which he is a hearty well-wisher ; but to 
point at the stupidity of those, who instead of immaterial essence, which 
would convey a rational meaning, have substituted immaterial substance^ 
which is a contradiction in terms. 



l62 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

depriving it of its existence ; whereas it possesses the greatest 
and noblest place on this earth, viz. the human brain. But 
indeed this mistake hath been sufficiently refuted by many 
very wise men; who having spent their whole lives in the 
5 contemplation and pursuit of Nothing, have at last gravely 
concluded — That there is Nothing in this world. 

Farther ; as Nothing is not Something, so every thing which 
is not Something, is Nothing ; and wherever Something is not, 
Nothing is : a very large allowance in its favour, as must 
lo appear to persons well skilled in human affairs. 

For instance ; when a bladder is full of wind, it is full of 
Something; but when that is let out, we aptly say, there is 
Nothing in it. 

The same may be as justly asserted of a man as of a blad- 
15 der. However well he may be bedawbed with lace, or with 
title, yet if he have not Something in him, we may predicate 
the same of him as of an empty bladder. 

But if we cannot reach an adequate knowledge of the true 
essence of Nothing, no more than we can of matter, let us, in 
20 imitation of the experimental philosophers, examine some of 
its properties or accidents. 

And here we shall see the infinite advantages which Nothing 
hath over Something : for while the latter is confined to one 
sense, or two perhaps at the most, Nothing is the object of 
25 them all. 

For first ; Nothing may be seen, as is plain from the rela- 
tion of persons who have recovered from high fevers ; and 
perhaps may be suspected from some (at least) of those who 
have seen apparitions, both on earth, and in the clouds. Nay, 
30 I have often heard it confessed by men, when asked what they 
saw at such a place and time, that they saw Nothing. Admit- 
ting then that there are two sights, viz. a first and second sight, 
according to the firm belief of some, Nothing must be allowed 



AN ESSAY ON NOTHING 163 

to have a very large share of the first ; and as to the second, 
it hath it all entirely to itself. 

Secondly ; Nothing may be heard : of which the same 
proofs may be given, as of the foregoing. The Argive, men- 
tioned by Horace, is a strong instance of this. 5 

— Fuit haud ignobilis Argis 
Qui se credebat tniros audire Tragcedos 
In vacuo latos sessor, Plausorque Theatre. 

That Nothing may be tasted and smelt, is not only known 
to persons of delicate palates and nostrils. How commonly 10 
do we hear, that such a thing smells or tastes of Nothing? 
The latter I have heard asserted of a dish compounded of five 
or six savory ingredients. And as to the former, I remember 
an elderly gentlewoman who had a great antipathy to the smell 
of apples ; who upon discovering that an idle boy had fastened 15 
some mellow apple to her tail, contracted a habit of smelling 
them, whenever that boy came within her sight, though there 
were then none within a mile of her. 

Lastly, feeling ; and sure if any sense seems more particu- 
larly the object of matter only, which must be allowed to be 20 
Something, this doth. Nay, I have heard it asserted (and 
with a colour of truth) of several persons, that they can feel 
nothing but a cudgel. Notwithstanding which, some have felt 
the motions of the spirit; and others have felt very bitterly 
the misfortunes of their friends, without endeavouring to relieve 25 
them. Now these seem two plain instances, that Nothing is 
an object of this sense. Nay, I have heard a surgeon declare, 
while he was cutting off a patient's leg, that he was sure he 
felt nothing. 

Nothing is as well the object of our passions as our senses. 30 
Thus there are many who love Nothing, some who hate Noth- 
ing, and some who fear Nothing, d^c. 



l64 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

We have already mentioned three of the properties of a noun, 
to belong to Nothing ; we shall find the fourth likewise to be 
as justly claim'd by it : and that Nothing is as often the object 
of the understanding, as of the senses. 
5 Indeed some have imagined, that knowledge, with the adjec- 
tive human placed before it, is another word for Nothing. And 
one of the wisest men in the world declared, he knew nothing. 
But without carrying it so far, this I believe may be allowed, 
that it is at least possible for a man to know Nothing. And who- 

10 ever hath read over many works of our ingenious moderns, with 
proper attention and emolument, will, I believe, confess, that 
if he understands them right, he understands Nothing. 

This is a secret not known to all readers ; and want of this 
knowledge hath occasioned much puzzling ; for where a book, 

15 or chapter, or paragraph, hath seemed to the reader to contain 
Nothing, his modesty hath sometimes persuaded him, that the 
true meaning of the author hath escaped him, instead of con- 
cluding, as in reality the fact was, that the author, in the said 
book, ^c. did truly, and bond fide ^ mean nothing. I remember 

20 once, at the table of a person of great eminence, and one no 
less distinguished by superiority of wit than fortune, when a 
very dark passage was read out of a poet, famous for being 
so sublime, that he is often out of the sight of his reader, some 
persons present declared they did not understand the meaning. 

25 The gentleman himself, casting his eyes over the performance, 
testified a surprize at the dulness of his company ; seeing Noth- 
ing could, he said, possibly be plainer than the meaning of 
the passage which thej stuck at. This set all of us to puzzling 
again ; but with like success ; we frankly owned we could not 

30 find it out, and desired he would explain it. — Explain it ! said 
the gentleman, why he means nothing. 

In fact, this mistake arises from a too vulgar error among 
persons unacquainted with the mystery of writing, who imagine 



AN ESSAY ON NOTHING 165 

it impossible that a man should sit down to write without any 
meaning at all ; whereas in reality, nothing is more common : 
for, not to instance in myself, who have confessedly sat down 
to write this essay, with Nothing in my head, or, which is much 
the same thing, to write about Nothing ; it may be incontest- 5 
ably proved, ab effechc^ that Nothing is commoner among the 
moderns. The inimitable author of a preface to the Posthu- 
mous Eclogues of a late ingenious young gentleman, says, — 
There are men who sit down to write what they think, and 
others to think what they shall write. But indeed there is a 10 
third, and a much more numerous sort, who never think either 
before they sit down, or afterwards ; and who when they pro- 
duce on paper what was before in their heads, are sure to 
produce Nothing. 

Thus we have endeavoured to demonstrate the nature of 15 
Nothing, by shewing first, definitively, what it is not ; and 
secondly, by describing what it is. The next thing therefore 
proposed, is to shew its various kinds. 

Now some imagine these several kinds differ in name only. 
But without endeavouring to confute so absurd an opinion, 20 
especially as these different kinds of Nothing occur frequently 
in the best authors, I shall content myself with setting them 
down, and leave it to the determination of the distinguishing 
reader, whether it is probable, or indeed possible, that they 
should all convey one and the same meaning. 25 

These are. Nothing per se Nothing ; Nothing at all ; Nothing 
in the least ; Nothing in nature ; Nothing in the world ; Nothing 
in the whole world ; Nothing in the whole universal world. And 
perhaps many others, of which we say — Nothing, 



l66 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

Sect. III. 

Of the Dignity of nothing ; mid a?i Endea%)Our to prove, that 
it is the End as well as Beginning of all Things, 

Nothing contains so much dignity as nothing. Ask an infa- 
mous worthless nobleman (if any such be) in what his dignity 
consists? It may not be perhaps consistent with dignity to 
give you an answer ; but suppose he should be willing to con- 
5 descend so far, what could he in effect say ? Should he say he 
had it of his ancestors, I apprehend a lawyer would oblige him 
to prove, that the virtues to which this dignity was annexed, 
descended to him. If he claims it as inherent in the title, 
might he not be told, that a title originally implied dignity, as 
10 it implied the presence of those virtues to which dignity is 
inseparably annexed ; but that no implication will fly in the 
face of downright positive proof to the contrary. In short, 
to examine no farther, since his endeavour to derive it from any 
other fountain would be equally impotent, his dignity arises from 
1 5 Nothing, and in reahty is Nothing. Yet, that this dignity really 
exists ; that it glares in the eyes of men, and produces much 
good to the person who wears it, is, I believe, incontestable. 
Perhaps this may appear in the following syllogism. 
The respect paid to men on account of their titles, is paid 
20 at least to the supposal of their superior virtues and abihties, 
or it is paid to Nothing. 

But when a man is a notorious knave or fool, it is impossi- 
ble there should be any such supposal. 
The conclusion is apparent. 
25 Now that no man is ashamed of either paying or receiving 
this respect, I wonder not, since the great importance of Noth- 
ing seems, I think, to be pretty apparent : but that they should 
deny the deity worshipped, and endeavour to represent Noth- 
ing as Something, is more worthy reprehension. This is a 



AN ESSAY ON NOTHING 167 

fallacy extremely common. I have seen a fellow, whom all the 
world knew to have Nothing in him, not only pretend to Some- 
thing himself; but supported in that pretension by others who 
have been less liable to be deceived. Now whence can this 
proceed, but from their being ashamed of Nothing? A mod- 5 
esty very peculiar to this age. 

But notwithstanding all such disguise and deceit, a man 
must have very little discernment, who can live long in courts, 
or populous cities, without being convinced of the great dignity 
of Nothing ; and though he should, through corruption or neces- 10 
sity, comply with the vulgar worship and adulation, he will know 
to what it is paid, namely, to Nothing. 

The most astonishing instance of this respect, so frequently 
paid to Nothing, is when it is paid (if I may so express myself) 
to Something less than Nothing ; when the person who receives 15 
it is not only void of the quality for which he is respected, but 
is in reality notoriously guilty of vices directly opposite to 
the virtues, whose applause he receives. This is, indeed, the 
highest degree of Nothing, or, (if I may be allowed the word) 
the Nothingest of all Nothings. 20 

Here it is to be known, that respect may be aimed at Some- 
thing, and really light on Nothing. For instance ; when mistak- 
ing certain things called gravity, canting, blustring, ostentation, 
pomp, and such like, for wisdom, piety, magnanimity, charity, 
true greatness, &'c. we give to the former the honour and rever- 25 
ence due to the latter. Not that I would be understood so 
far to discredit my subject, as to insinuate that gravity, cant- 
ing, 6^^. are really Nothing ; on the contrary, there is much 
more reason to suspect, (if we judge from the practice of the 
world) that wisdom, piety, and other virtues, have a good title 30 
to that name. But we do not, in fact, pay our respect to the 
former, but to the latter : in other words, we pay it to that 
which is not, and consequently pay it to Nothing. 



I68 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

So far then for the dignity of the subject on which I am 
treating. I am now to shew, that Nothing is the end as well 
as beginning of all things. 

That every thing is resolvable, and will be resolved into its 

5 first principles, will be, I believe, readily acknowledged by 
all philosophers. As therefore we have sufficiently proved the 
world came from Nothing, it follows, that it will likewise end 
in the same : but as I am writing to a nation of Christians, 1 
have no need to be prolix on this head ; since every one of 

lo my readers, by his faith, acknowledges that the world is to 
have an end, i.e. is to come to Nothing. 

And as Nothing is the end of the world, so is it of every 
thing in the world. Ambition, the greatest, highest, noblest, 
finest, most heroic and godlike of all passions, what doth it 

15 end in? — Nothing. What did Alexander^ Ccesar, and all the 
rest of that heroic band, who have plundered, and massacred 
so many millions, obtain by all their care, labour, pain, fatigue, 
and danger ? — Could they speak for themselves, must they 
not own, that the end of all their pursuit was Nothing? Nor is 

20 this the end of private ambition only. What is become of that 
proud mistress of the world, — the Caput triumphati Orbis ? 
that Rome, of which her own flatterers so liberally prophesied 
the immortality, in what hath all her glory ended? surely in 
Nothing. 

25 Again, what is the end of avarice? Not power, or pleasure, 
as some think, for the miser will part with a shilling for neither : 
not ease or happiness; for the more he attains of what he 
desires, the more uneasy and miserable he is. If every good 
in this world was put to him, he could not say he pursued one. 

30 Shall we say then, he pursues misery only? that surely would 
be contradictory to the first principles of human nature. May 
we not therefore, nay, must we not confess, that he aims at 
Nothing? especially if he be himself unable to tell us what is 



AN ESSAY ON NOTHING 169 

the end of all this bustle and hurry, this watching and toiling, 
this self-denial, and self-constraint ! 

It will not, I apprehend, be sufficient for him to plead, that 
his design is to amass a large fortune, which he never can nor 
will use himself, nor would willingly quit to any other person ; 5 
unless he can shew us some substantial good which this fortune 
is to produce, we shall certainly be justified in concluding, that 
his end is the same with that of ambition. 

The great Mr. Hobbes so plainly saw this, that as he was an 
enemy to that notable immaterial substance which we have 10 
here handled, and therefore unwilHng to allow it the large 
province we have contended for, he advanced a very strange 
doctrine, and asserted truly, — That in all these grand pursuits, 
the means themselves were the end proposed, inz. to ambition, 
plotting, fighting, danger, difficulty, and such like : — to ava- 15 
rice, cheating, starving, watching, and the numberless painful 
arts by which the passion proceeds. 

However easy it may be to demonstrate the absurdity of this 
opinion, it will be needless to my purpose, since if we are 
driven to confess that the means are the only end attained, — 20 
I think we must likewise confess, that the end proposed is 
absolutely Nothing. 

As I have here shewn the end of our two greatest and 
noblest pursuits, one or other of which engages almost every 
individual of the busy part of mankind, I shall not tire the 25 
reader with carrying him through all the rest, since I believe 
the same conclusion may be easily drawn from them all. 

I shall therefore finish this essay with an inference, which 
aptly enough suggests itself from what hath been said : seeing 
that such is its dignity and importance, and that it is really 30 
the end of all those things which are supported with so much 
pomp and solemnity, and looked on with such respect and 
esteem, surely it becomes a wise man to regard Nothing with 



I/O SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

the utmost awe and adoration; to pursue it with all his parts 
and pains ; and to sacrifice to it his ease, his innocence, and 
his present happiness. To which noble pursuit we have this 
great incitement, that we may assure ourselves of never being 

5 cheated or deceived in the end proposed. The virtuous, wise, 
and learned may then be unconcerned at all the changes of 
ministries and of government ; since they may be well satis- 
fied, that while ministers of state are rogues themselves, and 
have inferior knavish tools to bribe and reward ; true virtue, 

lo wisdom, learning, wit, and integrity, will most certainly bring 
their own possessors — Nothing. 



XXXII 

A FAREWELL TO THE READER 

We are now, reader, arrived at the last stage of our long 
journey. As we have therefore travelled together through so 
many pages, let us behave to one another like fellow-travellers 

1 5 in a stage-coach, who have passed several days in the company 
of each other ; and who, notwithstanding any bickerings or 
little animosities which may have occurred on the road, gener- 
ally make all up at last, and mount, for the last time, into their 
vehicle with chearfulness and good-humour ; since, after this 

20 one stage, it may possibly happen to us, as it commonly hap- 
pens to them, never to meet more. 

As I have here taken up this simile, give me leave to carry 
it a little farther. I intend then in this last book to imitate 
the good company I have mentioned in their last journey. 

25 Now it is well known, that all jokes and raillery are at this 
time laid aside ; whatever characters any of the passengers 
have, for the jest-sake personated on the road, are now thrown 
off, and the conversation is usually plain and serious. 



A FAREWELL TO THE READER 171 

In the same manner, if I have now and then, in the course 
of this work, indulged any pleasantry for thy entertainment, I 
shall here lay it down. The variety of matter, indeed, which 
I shall be obliged to cram into this book, will afford no room 
for any of those ludicrous observations which I have elsewhere 5 
made, and which may sometimes, perhaps, have prevented 
thee from taking a nap when it was beginning to steal upon 
thee. In this last book thou wilt find nothing (or at most very 
little) of that nature. AH will be plain narrative only; and, 
indeed, when thou hast perused the many great events which 10 
this book will produce, thou wilt think the number of pages 
contained in it, scarce sufficient to tell the story. 

And now, my friend, I take this opportunity (as I shall have 
no other) of heartily wishing thee well. If I have been an 
entertaining companion to thee, I promise thee it is what I 15 
have desired. If in any thing I have offended, it was really 
without any intention. Some things perhaps here said, may 
have hit thee or thy friends ; but I do most solemnly declare 
they were not pointed at them. I question not but thou hast 
been told, among other stories of me, that thou wast to travel 20 
with a very scurrilous fellow : but whoever told thee so, did 
me an injury. No man detests and despises scurrility more 
than myself; nor hath any man more reason; for none has 
ever been treated with more : and what is a very severe fate, 
I have had some of the abusive writings of those very men 25 
fathered upon me, who in other of their works have abused 
me themselves with the utmost virulence. 

All these works, however, I am well convinced, will be dead 
long before this page shall offer itself to thy perusal : for how- 
ever short the period may be of my own performances, they 30 
will most probably outlive their own infirm author, and the 
weekly productions of his abusive contemporaries. 



NOTES 



1 1 No. I is taken from Tom Jones, Book xvi, chap, i, 

1 10 In contrast with the prologues of the Elizabethan and Jacobean 
periods, those of the Restoration stage and after had, as Fielding says, 
no essential connection with the plays to which they were prefixed. 
They were often written in a style of the most brazen effrontery. Not 
infrequently they were supplied by friends of the author or by writers 
of assured celebrity who thus patronized their younger fellow-craftsmen 
either from good nature or for a monetary consideration. Dryden was 
famous for his prologues and epilogues, which brought him consider- 
able money. He raised the price paid for them from two to three 
guineas, according to Johnson, though the sums are variously stated. 
Pope salutes Southeme, 

whom Heaven sent down to raise 
The price of prologues and of plays. 

To Mr. Thomas Southeme, on his Birthday, IJ42. 

Fielding's introductory chapters were copied by Richard Cumberland 
in his novel Henry (1795), but not to advantage. A warning to imita- 
tors is to be found on p. 28 of this volume. 

2 4 Emolument : more often used in the general sense of benefit, 
comfort, in the eighteenth century than at present. So Swift, Tale of 
a Tub : " That wind still continues of great emolument in certain 
mysteries." 

2 32 Swift : For an appreciation by Fielding, see Nos. XVII and XI X, 

2 32 Cervantes : Cervantes was loved early and well by Fielding. 
Not only did he base a play on Don Quixote (see Introduction, xvi), 
but he was largely influenced by the same masterpiece when writing 
foseph Andretvs, as is proved not only by the sub-title, " written in imi- 
tation of the manner of Cervantes," but also by several incidents in the 
story itself. See No. XIX for his estimate of his great predecessor. 

3 6 No. II is taken from Tom Jojies, Book xiii, chap. i. 

3 9 Mnesis : a form found in the classical authors only in the com- 
pound dvdfjLvrja-Ls, recollection. Stephanus, Thesatirits Lingtcae Graecae 

173 



174 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

(ed. Hase and Dindorf, 1829) glosses it " Recordatio." It was used 
thus as equivalent to Mvrnxr] (Memory), who was represented as the 
mother of the Muses, and it was doubtless so understood by Fielding. 

3 10 Hebrus : the chief river in Thrace, modem Maritza. On its 
banks Orpheus was torn in pieces by Thracian women. Often con- 
nected with worship of Dionysus. 

3 11 Maeonia: the earlier name for Lydia, used by Homer. 

3 11 Mantua: the birthplace of Virgil. 

3 18 Charlotte : refers to Charlotte Cradock, Fielding's first wife. 
See Introduction, xvi. 

3 28 Trachtchugt : is for the Dutch trekschuit, canal boat. 

3 29 Ufrow gelt : The first of these words is for juffrouw, madam ; 
the second may be for geld, money. The expression is, however, some- 
what obscure. 

4 1 Grubstreet-school : Grub Street, now Milton Street, was even 
more closely associated with hack writing in the eighteenth century 
than now, when poor authors have long since abandoned the neighbor- 
hood of Moorfields as a place of residence. 

4 3 Poetry to tickle not the fancy, etc. : an allusion to the practice of 
literary patronage. 

5 11 Aristophanes, etc. : all favorite authors of Fielding's at one 
time or other. See Nos. XVII and XIX of this volume. 

5 18 Allen and Lyttleton: Ralph Allen and George Lyttelton were 
the author's two most constant friends. The former was born in Corn- 
wall of poor parentage, in 1694. By his business capacity he became 
postmaster and chief citizen of Bath at an early age. He devised and 
farmed out a postal system between England and Wales, and also 
owned large quarries near Bath. At Prior Park, where he built a mag- 
nificent house, he received most of the literary and political celebrities 
of the time, with many of whom he was on the most friendly terms. 
The benevolence of " The Man of Bath," as he was called, expressed 
itself in countless ways and apparently with tact and discrimination. 
His relations with Fielding were especially intimate. Not only did he 
lodge the novelist at his home and assist him generously during his life- 
time, but after his death educated his children and provided for them in 
his will. He was repaid by Fielding's manly and grateful regard, which 
finds expression m. Joseph Andre7vs (see No. XXIV) and in the dedica- 
tion to Amelia.. He died in 1764. Lyttleton (or Lyttelton) was bom in 
1709, the son of Sir Thomas Lyttelton, Bart. He was educated at Eton, 
where Fielding was a schoolfellow, and at Christ Church, Oxford. After 



r 



NOTES 175 

making the '* grand tour " he entered Parliament, where he played a very 
prominent role for over twenty years, not because he had any great 
capacity for political life but because of his family connection. He was 
a member of several ministries and, though manifestly unfitted for prac- 
tical affairs, chancellor of the exchequer. In 1756 he was created Baron 
Lyttelton and never again held office, though he continued to be active 
in politics till his death in 1773. In his time he was scarcely less promi- 
nent as a literary than as a political figure. He wrote poems, essays, 
dialogues, epistles, and a large History of the Revolutions of England 
(1767). Of the last, Walpole {Letters, V, 58) said, " How dull one may 
be, if one will but take pains for six or seven and twenty years together." 
All his works are now equally forgotten. He was a man of fair talents 
and great industry, but he had no originahty in letters and no practical 
knowledge of affairs. Fielding's praise of his friend in the dedication 
of Tom Jones is thus justified in only one particular, — Lyttelton's per- 
sonal character, though it had no charm for most, was above all sus- 
picion of taint. He was a thoroughly good and generous man, whose 
treatment of his old friend did him the utmost credit. 

5 30 Birchen altar : A picture of this instrument is given in H. C. M. 
Lyte's History of Eton College (1889). 

65 Warburton: William Warburton (1698-1779), the celebrated 
scholar and bishop of Gloucester. He was a man of wide but not well- 
ordered learning, whose industry brought him fame and his social rela- 
tions money. He is now perhaps best remembered for his edition of 
Shakespeare and his numerous literary quarrels. 

6 9 Spunging-house : The bailiff's house, where debtors were tempo- 
rarily confined in order to give them a chance to pay their obligations 
and avoid imprisonment, was so called. 

6 11 Manners of mankind: an allusion to Horace, Ars Foefica, 142, 
which Fielding took as the motto of Tojn Jones. 

6 18 No. Ill is taken from Tom Jones, Book i, chap. i. 

6 20 Public ordinary : here the table d'hote provided at an inn. It is 
sometimes applied to the inn or tavern itself and was formerly used of 
the company that frequented such a table. 

7 23 Calibash and calipee : variously spelled. Calipash or calibash is 
the part of the turtle next to the upper shell, calipee the part next to 
the lower shell. The New Eng. Diet, conjectures that the words may 
be of West Indian origin. 

8 8 True wit, etc.: from An Essay on Criticism, Part ii (vv. 298, 
299 of the whole poem). 



1/6 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

8 24 Heliogabalus (or better Elagabalus) : the name assumed by 
Varius, who ruled as Roman emperor 218-222 A.D. under the style 
of M. Aurelius Antoninus. His career was one of the most besotted 
known even in degenerate Rome. 

9 9 No. IV is the Author'' s Preface of Joseph Andrews. In con- 
nection with this essay read Addison, On Ridicule^ Spectator^ No. 
249. 

9 19 Aristotle tells us : In the Poetics, iv, 9, Aristotle remarks that 
Homer's Margites bore the same analogy to comedy that his Iliad and 
Odyssey did to tragedy. As Fielding says, it is lost ; but our knowledge 
of it is sufficient to show that it was something like a burlesque of the 
Homeric poems. 

10 6 Telemachus: the Telemaqtie by Fran9ois de Salagnac de 
Lamotte-Fenelon (1651-1715), archbishop of Cambrai. Fielding's 
characterization of the work proceeded from the conventional esteem 
in which it was, and to some extent still is, held rather than from a 
critical examination of its worth. Undeniably great, it is a mixture 
of pagan antiquity and Christian aspiration. Lanson, Hist, de la Hit. 
franf., p. 608, calls it with much justice "a pedagogical romance." 

10 12 Clelia {Clelie) by Madeleine de Scudery (1607-1701) ; Cleopatra 
{Cleopdtre) by Gautier de Coste, seigneur de La Calprenede (1609-1663) ; 
Astraea {PAstree) by Honore d'Urfe (i 568-1625) ; Cassandra [Cassandre) 
by La Calprenede ; the Grand Cyrus {Artamene ou le grand Cyrtis) by 
Mile, de Scudery. All of these works were famous representatives of 
the artificial romance of the seventeenth century. Astree is of the pas- 
toral type which developed under Spanish influence, the others of the 
heroic type as formed by La Calprenede. The literary impulse which 
produced them centered in the French court, was extraordinarily vigor- 
ous, but did not long survive. The romances in question were utterly 
lacking in verisimilitude and sense of proportion, but they had the merits 
of wit and tenderness. They were all prodigiously long, Cleopdtre, for 
example, extending to four thousand one hundred and fifty-three pages ; 
but in spite of this fact they were exceedingly popular in France and 
were devoured with similar eagerness in their English translations. See 
Petit de Julleville, Hist, de la langue et de la litt. fran^aise., tome IV, 
and Dunlop-Liebrecht, Prosadichtungen, chaps, xi and xii, for accounts 
of the movement. 

1 1 28 Lord Shaftesbury's opinion, etc. : In Shaftesbury's Character- 
isticks, I, 73 (London, 1733), the statement is more guarded: '"T is 
for this reason, I verily believe, that the Antients discover so little of this 



NOTES 177 

spirit, and that there is hardly such a thing found as mere Burlesque in 
any Authors of the poUter Ages." 

12 12 Caricatura : This form of the word, taken from the Italian, was 
gradually superseded by caricature in the course of the eighteenth century. 

12 31 Hogarth: William Hogarth, the painter and engraver, was 
bom in 1697 and died in 1764. Little is know^n of his personal rela- 
tions with Fielding, save that they were constant friends. The novel- 
ist's frequent and enthusiastic expressions of admiration were not 
unmerited Ijy the work of the great artist and must have had some 
effect in establishing his vogue. 

13 22 Proper to comedy: See Aristotle, Poetics, iv, 9, — the passage 
mentioned above (note to 9 19) concerning Homer. The statement is 
very indirect and says that Homer "first laid down the main lines of 
Comedy, by dramatising the ludicrous instead of writing personal satire " 
(trans, by Butcher). 

13 25 The Abb6 Bellegarde : Jean-Baptiste Morvan de Bellegarde, a 
member of the brotherhood of St. Francis of Sales, published in 1695 
his Reflexions sur f elegance et la politesse du style. Though this was 
his most famous work. Fielding refers to his Reflexions sur le ridicule, 
which made part of a collection published in four volumes in 1723. 
A translation of the work in two volumes was published in 1727. 

14 28 Ben Johnson: Fielding commonly used this form of the name. 
In the brilliant series of comedies from Every Man in his Humour 
(1598) to The Devil is aft Ass (1616), Jonson certainly used the "hypo- 
critical affectation " with much success, though not so universally as 
Fielding's words imply. 

1 5 22 None ard for being, etc. : I do not know the source of this 
quotation. 

16 7 No. V is from Tom /ones. Book ii, chap. i. 

1 7 1 Ad confligendum, etc. : from Lucretius, De rerum natura, iii, 
833-837. The text does not altogether agree with that accepted 
to-day, notably in the third and fourth verses. The translation was 
that of Thomas Creech, published in 1682 and very famous in its day. 

17 23 Drawn at Guild-Hall : It is scarcely necessary to remind the 
reader that lotteries were used in the eighteenth century to raise money 
for all kinds of worthy purposes, and that the government was not 
above operating them. 

18 18 No. VI is taken ixom. Joseph Andrews, Book iii, chap. i. The 
latter part of the chapter discusses various characters of the novel. It 
is omitted here as being uninteresting apart from the context. 



178 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

19 4 Lord Clarendon and Mr. Whitlock : Lord Clarendon's History of 
the Rebellion^ which was first pubhshed in 1 702-1 704, is now regarded as 
the best contemporary account of the Civil Wars. To it was opposed 
by the Whigs of the eighteenth century the Memorials of the English 
Affairs from the beginning of the Reign of Charles I to the happy 
Restoration of King Charles II, by Bulstrode Whitelocke, published in 
1682. Whitelocke was a Commonwealth man turned Royalist, whose 
work was for long overrated, though of little real worth. Naturally his 
history differs from Clarendon's. 

19 5 Echard and Rapin : Laurence Echard published his History of 
England vcv 1707 and 17 18. It brought him considerable fame, though 
not of much merit, until superseded by the similar work by Paul de 
Rapin (in French, 1723-1725; trans, by Tindal, 1726-1731) which held 
the field till Hume's work appeared. 

19 19 Chrysostonv a scholar who turned shepherd. See Don Quixote, 
Ormsby's trans., Part i, chaps, xii, xiii. 

1 9 23 Cardenio and Ferdinand : a reference to the story in Don 
Quixote, Part i, chaps, xxiii-xxv, which tells how Ferdinand treach- 
erously tried to deprive Cardenio of his lady love and how Cardenio 
went mad. 

19 24 Anselmo, Camilla, and Lothario: the chief characters in the 
story The I II- Advised Curiosity inserted in Don Quixote, Part i, chaps, 
xxxiii, xxxiv. Anselmo engages his friend Lothario to test the fidelity 
of his w^ife Camilla. The attempt succeeds too well and Anselmo dies 
of grief. 

19 30 Dr. Sangrado : a well-known character in the romance of Gil 
Bias by Le Sage. Like many of his fellows in the book he has but 
one idea, that indicated in the text. Le Sage lived 1668-1747 and was 
thus a contemporary of Fielding. 

20 5 Scarron: Paul Scarron (1610-1660), the author of the Roman 
cofnique, in which he parodied the works of La Calprenede and his 
school and produced a book of far more interest than any of theirs. 

20 5 Marianne and Le Paisan Parvenu : romances by Marivaux 
(1688-1763). 

20 10 Atalantis writers : a reference to the series of scandal mongers 
who continued the A^ew Atalantis (1709-17 10, 4 vols.) by Mrs. Mary 
Manley. Her work was immensely popular, impudently full of slander, 
and very typical of the worst sort of memoirs masquerading as fiction. 
Mrs. Manley wrote in the Tory interest and was the author of many 
plays as well as novels. 



NOTES 179 

20 18 Balzac: Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac (1597-1654), author of 
many Lettres, Le Prince^ and Socrate chretien. He was a polished 
writer who was fond of sententious commonplaces like the one quoted 
in the text. 

20 22 Those stilts, etc. : Voltaire, Letters on England., Letter XVIII, 
On Tragedy (Cassell's National Libr., ed. Henry Morley, p. 146). 
These letters, which were the fruits of Voltaire's sojourn in England 
from 1727 to 1729, were first published in London in an English trans- 
lation made f 10m Voltaire's manuscript under the direction of his friend 
Thieriot. This was in 1733. In 1734 appeared two separate and some- 
what different editions of the French text, — one in London, the other 
in Rouen and Paris. The Lettres sur les anglais are often known as 
Lettres philosophiqties. Fielding evidently quoted from memory the 
English text, which reads : " But then it must be also confessed that 
the stilts of the figurative style, on which the English tongue is lifted 
up, raises the genius at the same time very far aloft, though with an 
irregular pace." 

20 26 Beyond the realm, etc. : Milton's Paradise Lost, i, 543. The 
quotation is not exact. The passage reads (ed. Masson) : 

At which the universal host sent up 

A shout that tore Hell's concave, and beyond 

Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night. 

20 32 Mariana's : again a reference to Marivaux's romance. 

21 11 Lawyer in the stage-coach, etc. : See Book i, chap, xii, of 
Joseph Andrews. 

22 11 No. VII is taken ixova Joseph Andrezus, Book i, chap. i. 

23 10 John the Great : needs scarcely be glossed as our nursery 
friend Jack the Giant-Killer. , 

i 23 12 Earl of Warwick: Guy of Warwick was one of the most cele- 
brated heroes of Middle-English romance. His story took its rise in 
the tenth and eleventh centuries and was written down in Anglo- 
Norman verse late in the twelfth or early in the thirteenth century. 
About a hundred years later it was worked over into English verse. 
The latter version became the basis for several later adaptations of the 
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, none of which has much literary 
merit. John Lydgate's poem (fifteenth century) tells only a portion of 
the story, and that was taken from a Latin version. Two epics of por- 
tentous length and unexceptionable dullness, dealing with Guy, were 
produced in the seventeenth century, the one by John Lane with an 



l8o SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

introductory sonnet by the poet Milton's father, the other by Samuel 
Rowlands. The evidence which these ostensibly literary versions bear 
to the popularity of the story is strengthened by the fact that three 
so-called ballads on the same topic exist, though only one of them 
has any claim to the title (see Hales and Furnivall, Percy's Folio 
MS., Vol. II). The tale was, indeed, so popular for many centuries 
that the hero assumed an historical character, though he was originally 
only the embodiment of patriotic feeling engendered by the fights 
between the Scandinavians and the English. About this as a centre 
was grouped a variety of adventures taken, whether consciously or not, 
from other romances. The tale, thus formed, possessed unusual vigor 
of life and is even now not altogether forgotten. Thus Guy's Cliff, 
the supposed hermitage of the hero's last days, is still shown near 
Warwick. 

23 14 Argalus and Parthenia : the lovers whose woes form a moving 
episode in Sir Philip Sidney's Cotmtess of Pembroke's Arcadia (1590). 

23 15 Champions of Christendom: Richard Johnson (i 573-1659?) was 
the author of this romance. He was a literary hack with a touch of 
poetical skill, who published industriously. He is best known, how- 
ever, for his Famous Historie of the Seaven Champions of Chi'istendom : 
St. George of England, St. Denis of France, St. fames of Spaine, St. 
A7itho7iy of Italy, St. Ajidrew of Scotland, St. Patricke of Ireland, and 
St. David of Wales, which was entered at Stationers' Hall in 1596. 
The prose of the narrative is interspersed with verse, some of which is 
adapted from Shakespeare. See Seccombe's article in Diet. Nat. Biog. 

23 27 CoUey Cibber: The famous actor, theatrical manager, play- 
wright, and poet laureate published in 1740 A71 Apology for the Life 
of Mr. Colley Cibber ... written by himself. The best edition of it is 
that by Robert W. Lowe, London, 1889. Cibber's Apology is one of 
the most famous of theatrical memoirs and deserves its fame, despite 
his indifference to accurate statement and his odd style. It must be 
remembered that the Apology was known to every one when Fielding 
printed this gibe in foseph Andreivs (1742), and it must be admitted 
that the sprightly playwright was fair game. For further discussion of 
the subject, see Introduction, xxxix ff., and for Cibber's attack on 
Fielding chap, viii of the Apology. 

23 27 Pamela Andrews : Richardson's first and very famous novel was 
published in November, 1740. See Introduction, xix. 

24 16 No. VIII is taken from Tom fones. Book iv, chap. i. One 
sentence is omitted at the end of this selection. 



NOTES l8l 

24 25 While — history with her comrade ale : I do not know the 
source of this quotation. 

24 28 Opinion of Butler : Hudibras, Part i, canto i, vy. 645-664 : 

Thou that with ale, or viler liquors, 
Didst inspire Withers, Pryn, and Vickars, 
And force them, though it were in spite 
Of Nature, and their stars, to write ; etc. 

25 4 Hurlothrumbo : a comic opera by Samuel Johnson, dancing 
master and dramatist (1691-1773), which set London by the ears in 
1729. It was arrant nonsense but had a certain success on that very 
account. Johnson himself was an eccentric individual, apparently half 
mad, who succeeded in attracting attention to himself by his impudence 
rather than by any merit. 

25 19 Homer hath ascribed : Iliad^ the beginning of the second book, 
for example. 

26 3 Mr. Lock's blind man : See Locke, Essay concerning Human 
Under stajiding, Book ii, chap. 9, § 8, "Of Perception." Locke argues 
that if a blind man, who had learned to distinguish objects by touch, 
should be restored to sight, he "would not be able with cer- 
tainty to say which was the globe, which the cube, whilst he only 
saw them." 

26 17 King Pyrrhus was at dinner, etc. : This anecdote must refer to 
Barton Booth (i 681 -1733), who made a great success with the part of 
Pyrrhus in Philips' Distressed Mother in 171 2. As he had joined Wilks, 
Doggett, and Gibber in the management of Drury Lane the previous 
year, the circumstances of the story would all be accommodated. The 
impetuous temper of Wilks is well known. See Biographica Dramatica 
and Gibber's Apology. 

26 31 The several pageants, etc. : The " Lord Mayor's Show " was 
until a few years ago embellished with these same movable pageants 
supported by the city gilds. Formerly the monstrous images of Gog and 
Magog, now preserved in the Guildhall, were carried in the procession. 
The inauguration of the lord mayor has recently become something like 
a military review, though still attended with much pomp. 

28 1 No. IX is taken from To7?i Jones, Book ix, chap. i. 

28 17 Greek and Latin mottos : The Spectator (founded in 171 1) set 
the fashion of prefixing extracts from the classics to journals. Field- 
ing himseK followed the custom, as see Nos. XVIII, XIX, XXVII, 
XXVIII, XXIX. 



l82 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

29 6 As Rowe was of Shakspear: Nicholas Rowe (1674-1718), poet 
laureate and dramatist. It is difficult for the modern reader to dis- 
cover any imitation of Shakespeare in his frigid tragedies. 

29 7 As Horace hints, etc. : ■ an allusion to the Epistles^ i, xix, 

12-14: 

Quid, si quis vultu torvo ferus at pede nudo 

Exiguaeque togae simulet textore Catonem, 

Virtutemne repraesentet moresque Catonis ? 

The Cato referred to is probably Cato the Elder, the stock representa- 
tive of early Roman simplicity. 

29 17 Scribimus indocti, etc. : apparently a paraphrase of Horace, 
Ars Poetica, 474. Philip Francis, father of the reputed author of the 
Letters of Jtt7iius^ issued a translation of Horace in 1747, part of it 
having appeared five years earlier. 

30 5 Doomsday Book : an allusion to the Domesday Book, or register 
of taxable real property, which William the Conqueror had compiled 
in order to make his exactions more complete and regular. He began 
it in 1085. 

30 9 Pruritus : the itch. 

30 28 No study, says Horace, etc. : a reference to the Ars Foetica, 

409, 410: 

ego nee studium sine divite vena, 

Nee rude quid possit video ingenium, 

32 5 Characters of men : See Fielding's essay On the Knoivledge of 
the Characters of Men, printed in the Miscellanies of 1743, and Pope's 
Of the Knowledge and Characters of Men, Moral Essays, i (to Lord 
Cobham). 

32 15 The ingenious Mr. Miller : Philip Miller, the celebrated gardener 
in charge of the Chelsea Botanical Garden, not only discovered many 
rare plants but wrote several works on his art. Among them were The 
Gardener's and Florisfs Dictionary (1724) and the Gardener'' s Calen- 
dar (1732). Fielding owned a copy of the latter. 

32 17 Shakespear, or a Johnson : Fielding's favorite orthography for 
these names. 

32 18 Wycherly: William Wycherley (1640?-! 7 15), the author of four 
comedies, of which the most famous is The Plain Dealer. His work is 
characterized by bold satire and rich humor, but it is marred by the 
coarseness which he shared with all the Restoration comedy writers. 

32 18 Otway : Thomas Otway (1652-1685) was one of the most un- 
fortunate but most gifted dramatists of the Restoration period. He 



NOTES 183 

was weak in comedy, but his tragedies show a mastery of dramatic con- 
struction and characterization which places him not far below the great 
Elizabethans. The best of them are The Orphan (1680) and Venice 
Preserved (1681), of which the latter is properly regarded as his master- 
piece. 

32 20 Garrick: Garrick (1717-1779) was in the first flush of his fame 
at the time when Fielding wrote (1749). He made his first hit on the 
London stage in 174 1. 

32 20 Gibber : not, of course, Colley Gibber, but his daughter-in-law, 
"the great Mrs. Gibber" (17 14-1766). She was well known before her 
marriage with Theophilus Gibber, and after her separation from him won 
still higher renown both as singer and as actress, chiefly in tragedy. 

32 20 Clive : Mrs. Gatherine Glive (1711-1785), the famous Irish 
actress, best known for her work in comedy. 

33 22 The author who will make me weep, etc. : Horace, Ars Poetica, 

' ^ ' si vis me flere, dolendum est 

Primum ipsi tibi. 

34 1 No. X is taken from Tom Jones^ Book v, chap. i. 

34 7 This kind of writing : For Fielding's delightful announcement or 
proclamation, see No. V. 

34 ]3 That nice unity of time or place: Dryden had accepted the 
unities in the same general way as Gorneille, whom he quotes with 
approval in his Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668). In the Preface to 
Troilus and Cressida (1679) he had fallen more under the influence of 
Rapin and Bossu. His critical opinions had much to do with the estab- 
lishment of the classical tradition of which Fielding speaks. See Essays 
0/ fohn Dryden, ed. W. P. Ker, I, 228, and the note to the same on 
p. 319, for the current opinion as to the reason for the unities. 

34 26 Cuicunq; in arte, etc. : " Whoever is skilled in his profession 
must be believed." A maxim of the law of evidence to the effect that 
an expert may testify not only as to facts but as to his opinion upon 
facts. It is generally quoted in the form : " Guilibet in sua arte perito 
est credendum." See Broom, Legal Maxiins (6th ed., 1884), p. 885. 
Fielding apparently quoted from Goke on Lyttleton, 125 a. 

36 31 Bath : then of course the great watering place of England. It 
will be remembered that the town must have been almost as familiar to 
Fielding as London itself. 

37 9 Inventas, etc. : Virgil, ALneid, vi, 663 : 

Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes. 



l84 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

37 12 English, pantomime : See Gibber's Apology^ ed. Lowe, II, 180, 
181, for a lively picture of the origin of English pantomime. He was 
one of the managers of Drury Lane at the time (1717 or thereabouts), 
but disclaims any active part in its invention. Pope, in The Dunciad, 
ill, 264, says : 

On grinning Dragons Gibber mounts the wind. 

For Gibber's reply, see Apology, II, 182, note i. 

37 20 Harlequin: The characterization of this personage was appar- 
ently quite just. He was "not at all related to the French family," but 
charmed the crowd with childish wonders. See the reference in The 
Dunciad, iii, 225-248, where there is an allusion to the pantomime of 
Harleqtiin Sorcerer, in which Harlequin was hatched from a monstrous 
egg on the stage. 

38 5 Indignor, etc.: Horace, Ars Poetica, 359, 360. The second verse 

should read : 

Varum operi longo fas est obrepere somnum. 

38 12 Oldmixon : John Oldmixon (1673-1742), an industrious Whig 
historian and pamphleteer, still remembered for his quarrel with Pope, 
by which he earned the unenviable reputation of being duller than he 
really was. He was attacked by Pope in The Dunciad, ii, 283-290, and 
in The Art of Sinking in Poetry, chap. vi. The line quoted by Field- 
ing does not refer to Oldmixon, but occurs in The Dunciad, i, 94. It 

should read : 

Sleepless themselves, to give their readers sleep. 

39 1 No. XI is taken from Tom Jones, Book x, chap. i. 

40 9 Sir Epicure Mammon : the rich dupe in Ben Jonson's Alchemist 
(1610). 

40 9 Sir Fopling Flutter : the chief character in The Man of Mode, by 
Sir George Etherege, which was produced in 1676. 

40 11 Sir Courtly Nice : the title, as well as the name of the leading 
personage, of John Crowne's best-known play (1685). 

40 31 Nulla virtute, etc. : Juvenal, iv, 2, 3. 

41 16 Quas humana, etc. : a paraphrase of Horace, Ars Poetica, 
353, which is quoted in No. XII. 

42 1 No. XII is taken from Tom Jones, Book xi, chap. i. 

42 8 This word critic : " An adaptation of Latin critic-us sb., adapted 
from Greek kpltlkos a critical person, a critic, subst. use of the adj., 
perhaps immediately after French critique.''^ — IVew Eng. Diet. 



NOTES 



185 



42 17 Westminster-hall : See Spectator^ No. 21, Choice of a Profession, 
by Addison. 

44 2 Who steals, etc. : Othello, III, iii, 161 ff. Apparently quoted 
from memory. Cash should, of course, read ptwse. A comparison with 
a standard text will illustrate Fielding's laxness in quotation. 

44 17 The tender exclamation of Macduff: See Macbeth, IV, iii, 216. 
Macduff replies to Malcolm : 

He has no children. All my pretty ones ? 

Fielding's parody shows that he understood the exclamation as referring 
to Malcolm, a bit of opinion on this much-discussed passage that seems 
to have escaped notice. 

45 25 Aristotle, Horace, Longinus : Aristotle's Poetics, Horace's Ars 
Poetica, and Longinus On the Sublime. The last-named work is proba- 
bly not by the Greek rhetorician of the third century a.d. but by some 
unknown writer who lived about the beginning of our era. 

45 26 Dacier : Andre Dacier (1651-1722), an erudite scholar and 
French Academician, who was well known as a translator and com- 
mentator, most notably of Horace. His fame now rests on the fact that 
he was the husband of Mme. Dacier. See p. 64, 1. 2, and note. 

45 26 Bossu : Le Pere Bossu, whom Dryden {Preface to Troilus and 
Cressida) called " the best of modem ciitics," wrote a treatise Du poeme 
epique (1675). It was translated in 1695, and Pope gave a summary of 
it as an introduction to his Odyssey. 

46 7 No critic who is not Right Honourable : perhaps a reference to 
some attack made on Fielding's own work by a member of the govern- 
ment. I cannot identify the critic, however. 

46 16 Verum ubi, etc. : Horace, Ars Poetica, 351-354. Offendor in 
the second verse should read offendar. For the translation by Francis, 
see No. IX, note to p. 29, 1. 17. 

46 23 For as Martial says : Epigrammata i, xvii, Ad Avittcm. Avite 
is, of course, a proper name, though Fielding does not capitalize it. 

47 12 No. XIII is taken from Tom Jones, Book viii, chap. i. 

47 21 With M. Dacier: Preface sur les satires d^ Horace (1687). 

48 13 As Mr. Pope would have it : Near the end of A General View 
of the Epic Poem, and of the Iliad and Odyssey : extracted from Bossu, 
published with his translation of Homer, Pope says : " Thus the epi- 
sodes of Circe, the Syrens, Polyphemus, etc., are necessary to the 
action of the Odyssey, and yet not humanly probable : yet Homer 
has artificially reduced them to human probability, by the simplicity 



l86 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

and ignorance of the Phaeacians, before whom he causes those recitals 
to be made." 

48 18 Polypheme : Polyphemus, Odyssey^ Book ix. 

48 21 Circe : Odyssey, Book x. 

48 23 Homer could have known the rule prescribed by Horace : Ars 
Poetica, 191, 192. 

49 6 Lord Shaftesbury observes : Characteristicks, I, p. 5 (London, 

1733)- 

49 9 Invoke a ballad : See No. XVI, note to p. 64, 1. 5. A reference 

to Bentley's theory of Homeric origins. 

49 10 With the author of Hudibras : Part i, canto i, 645-664, already 

quoted, No. VIII, note to p. 24, 1. 28. 

49 12 Hippocrene : a fountain near Mount Helicon. 

50 12 Described by Herodotus : Books vii and viii. 

50 13 Related by Arrian : in his Anabasis of Alexandei-. Arrian 
lived in the latter part of the first and the first half of the second 
century A.D. 

60 14 Agincourt: The battle was fought in 141 5. 

50 15 Narva : Charles XII of Sweden defeated Peter the Great at 
Narva in 1700. 

50 25 The ghost of George Villiers : Clarendon in his History of the 
Rebellion tells how the ghost of Sir George Villiers, father of the first 
Duke of Buckingham, appeared at Windsor to an old officer of the 
King's Wardrobe about six months before the duke's assassination by 
Felton (1628). The ghost told the man to go to Buckingham and to 
urge him to court popular favor, else he would soon die. The man at 
first thought the appearance a dream, but when thrice warned, informed 
the duke, giving as credentials certain secrets which he had learned 
from the ghost. Buckingham was greatly disturbed and conferred 
about the matter with his mother, who subsequently manifested no sur- 
prise at her son's death. Clarendon Press ed., 1849, I' PP- 57~62. 

50 27 Dr. Drelincourt : Charles Drelincourt, a minister of the reformed 
church in France, wrote a treatise entitled Les consolations de Vanie 
contre les frayeiirs de la mort (1669), which w^as translated into English 
by Marius D'Assigny as the Christiajt's Defence against the Fear of 
Death (1675). ^o the fourth edition of the translation (1706) Defoe 
prefixed his Apparition of Mrs. Vcale, the second narrative which he 
published. Dr. Drelincourt thus had nothing to do with "the ghost of 
Mrs. Veale,^'' as Fielding implies. 

51 3 That incredulous hatred mentioned by Horace : Ars Poetica, 188. 



NOTES 187 

51 13 Trajan: Roman emperor, 98-1 17 a.d. ; Antoninus, 138-161 a.d.; 
Nero, 54-68 A.D. ; Caligula, 37-41 a.d. 

51 31 Scrutoire : a form of escritoire not uncommon in the eighteenth 
century, though hardly justifiable. 

52 15 Even Nero himself: See Suetonius, A'ero, 34. A very free para- 
phrase, evidently from memory. 

52 20 That I had known a man, etc. : a reference to Ralph Allen. 
See No. II, note to p. 5, 1. 18. 

53 14 Quis credit? etc.: a quotation, with variations, of Persius, i, 

< Quis leget haec ? ' min tu istud ais .? Nemo hercule. ' Nemo ? ' 
Vel duo, vel nemo. 

53 20 Rarae aves : The term 7'ara avis is found in Horace, Satires, 
ii, ii, 26, and Juvenal, vi, 165. 

54 1 It is admirably remarked, etc. : I have not been able to trace 
the reference. 

54 13 Our modern authors of comedy, etc. : This criticism of Fielding's 
is eminently just. Not one of the school of dramatists which found 
its greatest representative in Congreve was free from the fault. 

54 24 Tyburn : Tyburn Hill, near the site of the present Marble 
Arch, was the ordinary place of execution in eighteenth-century London. 

55 1 The Bathos : In the Miscellanies by Swift, Pope, Gay, and 
Arbuthnot, III (March, 1 727-1 728), Pope published his Yiepl ^ddov with 
the sub-title T/ie Art of Sinking in Poetry. In it he attacked in vigorous 
prose the absurdities of his literary contemporaries, adding some of his 
own invention. The treatise is reprinted in vol. X of the Elwin and 
Courthope edition. Arbuthnot had some share in its composition. 

55 15 The character of a young lady of quality: perhaps a reference 
to The Universal Gallant, a comedy of Fielding's which was tried 
unsuccessfully in 1735. In his Advertisement he complained of ill 
treatment at the hands of the young men of the town. Who made " a 
Jest of damning Plays." His Enrydice (1737) met an even worse fate. 

55 22 No. XIV is taken from Tom Jones, Book xii, chap. i. 

56 2 Abbe Bannier: The reference is to Mythologie et les fables expli- 
qtiees par Phistoire (i 738-1 740) by the Abbe Antoine Banier, in which 
the Greek mythological stories are systematically resolved into history. 
As we know from the catalogue of his library issued at the time when 
his books were sold by his heirs, Fielding possessed this work in 
translation (4 vols., 1739-1740). See A. Dobson, Eighteenth Century 
Vignettes, 3d series, p. 173. The quotation here is from this edition, 



l88 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

I, p. viii. Aside from some changes of punctuation, the only difference 
between the quotation and its source is in the last word, which should 
read transcribing instead of translating. 

57 33 Spittal: more commonly spital or spittle, a hospital; properly 
a hospital for lepers. 

58 16 Mr. Moore: In Book ii of The Dtcnciad, Pope devotes twenty- 
six stinging lines to this person, among them these : 

Never was dash'd out, at one lucky hit, 
A fool so just a copy of a wit ; 
So like, that critics said, and courtiers swore, 
A wit it was, and call'd the phantom More. 

He was James Moore Smythe, a well-known fop, whose comedy The 
Rival Modes was produced in 1727. The circumstances were just 
about as Fielding narrates them. See notes in the Elwin and Court- 
hope edition of Pope, III, 112; IV, 132. 

59 1 No. XV is taken from Tom Jones, Book xiv, chap. i. 

69 26 As Cicero perswades us : Though Cicero speaks of the ideal 
orator in many places, he treats the necessity of his good equipment 
particularly in the Orator, xxxii-xxxiv. 

60 3 Bysse's Art of Poetry : Edward Bysshe w^as a hack writer of 
the early eighteenth century, of whose life nothing is known (see article 
in Diet. Nat. Biog.). In 1702 he published his least-forgotten work. 
The Art of English Poetry, which contained a dictionary of rhymes 
and quotations as well as a treatise on prosody. The book was very 
popular, going into its eighth edition in 1737. Part of it was reprinted 
in 1877 by Thomas Hood the younger as an appendix to his Practical 
Guide to English Versification. Fielding's reference implies a certain 
contempt for the work, though it was not bad in its way. 

60 8 Quam quisque norit, etc. : " Whatever craft any one has, let him 
employ himself in that." See Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, i, 18, 41, 
where it appears as a quotation from the Greek. 

60 17 Mr. Essex : John Essex was a London dancing master of much 
contemporary fame. The work to which Fielding refers is The Young 
Ladies' Conduct: or, rules for education, published in 1722. He had 
earlier (17 10) published another book. For the firther Improvement of 
Dancing, a Treatise of Chorography, or A?-t of dancing Coujitry Dances. 

60 19 Mr. Broughton : John Broughton (1705-1789), the most cele- 
brated pugilist of his day and usually considered the father of the art 
in England. In Book xiii, chapu v. Fielding speaks of " the muffled 



NOTES 189 

graduates of Mr. Broughton's school," and in a note appends a curious 
"advertisement which was published Feb. i, 1747," announcing that 
" Mr. Broughton proposes " to open a school of boxing at his house in 
the Haymarket in which "muffles are provided, that w^ill effectually 
secure them [his pupils] from the inconveniency of black eyes, broken 
jaws, and bloody noses." 

61 4 Van Brugh and Congreve copied nature: Sir John Van Brugh 
was bom in London about 1666, of Dutch parents. He was succes- 
sively a soldier, a dramatist, and an architect, and, unlike most of his 
poetical contemporaries, a practical man. His work as an architect can 
still be judged in Blenheim Palace, his most notable building. His best 
comedies are The Relapse (1696) and The Confederacy (1705), which 
excel in characterization and repartee, though weak in plot and unedify- 
ing in content. He died in 1726. William Congreve (1670-17 29) was 
the wittiest and the greatest of the school of comic dramatists which 
flourished at the end of the seventeenth century. All his comedies 
were written in one decade, but he lived on for a quarter of a century, 
an idle gentleman who despised the literary reputation on which he 
lived. His more important works are The Dotcble- Dealer (1694), Love 
for Love (1695), The Mourning Bride (1697), — his only tragedy, — and 
The Way of the World (1700). The last is his masterpiece, a wonder- 
ful comedy, polished, sparkling, delicately satirical in characterization, 
and well molded in plot. It may be doubted whether Van Brugh and 
Congreve " copied nature " any more than did Etherege, Wycherley, 
and Farquahar, but they certainly created interesting dramatic types. 
Their imitators failed in that, as is well illustrated by Fielding's own 
early efforts in comedy. 

• 61 6 A rout or a drum : evening parties of fashionable folk held at a 
private house. The two terms were used interchangeably. 

62 1 What Mr. Pope says of women : Moral Essays, Epistle ii, To a 
Lady. Of the Characters of Women. The epistle is addressed to 
Martha Blount and begins : 

Nothing so true as what you once let fall, 
' Most women have no characters at all. ' 

62 19 Lady Bellaston : Sophia's hostess in London, whom Mr. Dob- 
son (p. 123) calls a "fashionable demi-rep." 

62 23 Thwackum : Tom Jones' tutor. 

62 24 Ensign Northerton : the soldier whom Jones met in the seventh 
book, when he thought of enlisting. 



190 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

63 9 No. XVI is taken from A Journey from this World to the 
Next, Book i, chap. viii. 

63 21 A celebrated poet of our nation: Richard Glover (17 12-1785) 
was believed by his friends to be a great poet, though posterity has 
refused to read his ponderous works. His Leonidas (1737), an epic in 
nine books, was praised by Fielding in the Chai?ipion and mentioned 
by Swift in a letter to Pope as having "great vogue." Glover appears 
to have been an excellent man of business. 

63 26 Signior Piantanida : evidently some well-known musician of the 
period, though I have not been able to identify him. 

64 1 Consort : an erroneous form for concert, by which it was gradu- 
ally replaced in the course of the eighteenth century. See New E?ig. 
Diet. 

64 2 Madam Dacier : Anne Lefevre Dacier, the wife of Andre Dacier, 
was a distinguished translator and editor of the classics. Her best 
works were the translations of the Iliad (1711) and the Odyssey (1716), 
which still find appreciative readers because of the sound scholarship 
and excellent style that they display. 

64 2 Mr. Pope: Pope's Iliad v^as published in 171 5-1720. 

64 5 I had the curiosity to enquire, etc. : Richard Bentley (1662- 
1742), the English scholar, advanced the theory that the Homeric poems 
were written by Homer in the form of lays or ballads, thus indorsing 
the tradition that they were put together in the age of Pisistratus. See 
Remarks on a late Discozcrse of Free-thinking (17 13). Volkmann, 
Geschichte tind Kritik der Wolfschen Prolegomena, p. 8, says that this 
theory was " entirely unnoticed " ; but Fielding's reference shows that 
such was hot altogether the case. 

64 18 Dr. Trapp's : Joseph Trapp (1679-1747), a distinguished clergy- 
man, pamphleteer, and poetaster, published in 1 718— 1720 his translation 
of the j^iieid in blank verse. The work had no particular merit save 
as a literal rendering. Trapp was one of the Tory hangers-on whom 
Swift befriended. 

64 19 The discovery made by Mr. Warburton : Bishop Warburton 
devoted one chapter of his Divine Legation of Moses to a theory that 
the sixth book of the jEneid should be regarded as an account of Vir- 
gil's initiation to the Eleusinian mysteries. Such was the weight of 
Warburton's authority that the interpretation was accepted as fact until 
1770, when Gibbon exploded the theoi-y with his anonymous Critical 
Observations on the Sixth Book of the jEneid. See Gibbon, Autobio- 
graphic Memoirs, for an interesting account of the matter. 



NOTES 191 

65 1 Betterton : Thomas Betterton, the great actor, theatrical man- 
ager, and playwright, was bom in 1635 and died in 17 10. There can be 
no doubt that he was one of the greatest interpreters of Shakespearean 
characters that ever lived, though he played in mangled versions. He 
had a prosperous career and was greatly esteemed as a man. See the 
life by R. W. Lowe (London, 1891). 

65 2 Booth : See No. VIII, note to p. 26, 1. 17. 

65 8 Put out the Light, etc. : Othello^ V, ii, 7. Most of the readings 
offered by Fielding have been warmly recommended at one time or 
another. For a summary of the controversy, see the Varioj-um Shake- 
speare^ ed. H. H. Furness, Othello. 

663 Mr. Theobald: Lewis Theobald (1688-1744) was an industri- 
ous and clear-sighted scholar, though he made many enemies in his 
own time. As a poet he did not attain even temporary success. His 
Shakespeare restored, or a Specimen of the many Errors as well com- 
mitted as nna?nended by Mr. Pope in his late Edition of this Poet 
(1726) caused Pope to make him the hero of The Dunciad. He is 
now best remembered for his edition of Shakespeare, which was pub- 
lished in 1734. 

66 20 This selection (No. XVII) is taken from the middle of the fifth 
chapter, Book viii, of Amelia. 

66 27 The common Greek proverb : " Ofttimes the pupil goes beyond 
his master," — an epigram by Lucillius. 

67 2 Mr. Pope compliments him: Dunciad i, 19 ff. The quotation 
was made from memory apparently. In the first line thy ear should 
read thine ear ; in the third, yott take should be thoti choose ; and in the 
foujth, Rabelais'' was written RabUais\ 

67 10 Condescended to imitate Rabelais : The likeness between Swift 
and Frangois Rabelais, if present at all, is exceedingly superficial. 
Fielding is quite right in dissenting from Pope, for the misanthropy 
and mordant satire of Swift differ altogether in quality from the gentle 
wisdom of Cervantes or the jovial humanity of Rabelais. 

67 14 Lucian : born in Syria about 120 a.d. At first a professional 
rhetorician, he devoted the latter part of his life to travel and author- 
ship. No writer either of Greek or of any other tongue has surpassed 
him in his own field of satirical dialogue. His Dialogues of the Dead 
are the most widely known of all his works. 

67 18 Mr, Moyle: Walter Moyle (1672-1721). The Works of Walter 
Moyle, no7te of zvhich were ever before ptiblished, were edited by Thomas 
Sergeant in 1726. The Dissertation on the age of Philopatris, a 



192 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

dialogtie commonly ascribed to Ltician, is to be found in the first of 
the two volumes. 

6723 Cock: Lucian's dialogue "Oi/eipos ?) dXeKrptJcov, usually known as 
Galhis in Latin and The Cock in English. 

67 24 Cock and a Bull : The origin of the term is obscure. It is 
impossible to say more than does the N'ew Eng. Diet. : " In its origin 
apparently referring to some story or fable." 

67 32 Lucan : Lucan (a.d. 39-65) was bom in Spain but lived most of 
his brief life at Rome, where he fell under the displeasure of Nero. His 
only extant work is the Fharsalia, an epic in ten books, which displays 
vigorous imagination and diction but is excessively extravagant and 
bombastic. Nicholas Rowe (1674-17 18), the dramatist and poet lau- 
reate, made a translation of the Fharsalia which was published imme- 
diately after his death. It had great vogue during the eighteenth 
century and was regarded by Warton as superior to the original. 

68 6 A wretched one published by Mr. Dryden : This is not strictly 
true. A translation by Moyle, Sir Henry Shere, Charles Blount, and 
others was projected in 1696, when Dryden wrote a Life of Lucian. 
The work did not appear, however, till 17 11, so that Dryden can hardly 
be held responsible for the translaT:ion, as he died in 1700. 

68 27 As Mr. Pope was for his Homer : " The result was, therefore, a 
total profit at least approaching 9000 1." — Leslie Stephen, Alexafider 
Pope, p. 63. 

69 2 He gives his reason : Pope translates the verse : 

Such was the sovereign doom, and such the will of Jove ! 

As a matter of fact, the particle in this case seems to possess no strong 
adversative force. 

69 11 Madam Dacier : See No. XVI, note to p. 64, 1. 2. 

69 11 Monsieur Eustathius: Eustathius was an archbishop of Thes- 
salonica who flourished in the twelfth century and wrote a valuable 
commentary on Homer. 

69 18 Venerisque huic maximus, etc. : See Fharsalia, ii, 387, 388. 
Rowe renders the passage : 

He sought no end of marriage, but increase, 
Nor wish'd a pleasure, but his country's peace : 
That took up all the tenderest parts of life 
His country was his children and his wife. 

70 23 Statins {ca. 6i-ca. 96 a.d.): Statius is best known for his 
Thebdis, an heroic poem which was especially esteemed in the Middle 



NOTES 193 

Ages. His miscellaneous poems, mostly in hexameters, are called the 
Silvae. 

70 24 Silius Italicus (ca. 2^-ca. 100 a.d.) : Silius Italicus held impor- 
tant offices in the Roman government and wrote an heroic poem Piinica 
in slavish imitation of Virgil. He is also now supposed to be the author 
of the metrical abridgment of the Iliad, which is called the Homerus 
Latiiius. 

70 27 Ovid (43 B.C.-17 or 18 a.d.) and Claudian (late fourth and early 
fifth centuries) : These authors have left us no finished epics, though 
the latter at his death was engaged upon one, which is preserved in its 
uncompleted form. 

71 11 A speech on the side of the opposition : See Introduction, p. xxxix, 
for a similar scene from The Author'' s Farce. References to the custom 
of preparing speeches supposed to have been delivered in Parliament 
are very common in the literature of the time. 

71 32 The pen and ink, etc. : Fielding later developed this idea in the 
Covent-Garden Joiirnal iox June 27, 1752. 

72 16 No. XVIII is taken from Covent-Gardejt Jozirnal, March 21, 
1752, No. 23. 

72 16 The motto here is from the Iliad, Book ii, 204-206 (206 proba- 
bly spurious). In Murphy's edition (1762), from which this selection is 
taken; there are several deviations from the normal orthography of 
these verses. Since they are correctly rendered in the Dublin reprint 
of 1752, as I am informed, it is clear that Murphy or the printers may 
be held responsible for the peculiarities. 

73 19 Laws to restrain them: An act against blasphemy was passed 
in the time of William III (9 & 10 Will. Ill, c. 32), which is doubtless 
the one to which Fielding refers. It originated (1698) in an address to 
the king, calling upon him to " suppress pernicious books and pamphlets, 
which contain in them impious doctrines against the Holy Trinity," etc. 
The statute soon became a dead letter. See Stephen, Hist, of the Crim. 
Law of England, II, 468, 469. " Libels against the government " and 
slander were punishable in common law at the time when Fielding wrote, 
but the confusion which followed the expiration of the Licensing Act in 
1694 and continued till the enactment of Fox's Libel Act finds expres- 
sion in his words. It is interesting to note that in the year when this 
was published (1752) a jury acquitted one Owen of libel against the 
House of Commons, the first case, according to Stephen (II, 323), in 
which a jury " exercised their undoubted power to return a general 
verdict of not guilty in a case of libel." 



194 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

73 24 As Horace tells us : See Satires, ii, i, 8o ff. 

74 5 Breaking poor Priscian's head : violating the rules of grammar. 
A reference to the celebrated Latin grammarian, who lived about 
500 A.D. 

75 11 Reading a single verse in the Testament : For the history of 
benefit of clergy see Pollock and Maitland, History of English Laiv, 
I, 424 ff. It arose from the claim of the church that criminal causes 
against priests should be remitted to the bishop of the diocese before 
condemnation. Gradually this was extended until all persons, whether 
in orders or not, who could read the so-called " neck-verse," might 
claim benefit of clergy. The verse was Psalm li. i. Till 1487 a person 
who could read might commit murder as often as he chose with no 
other result than that of making his purgation. Until 1547 he was 
simply branded on the thumb with an M. Benefit of clergy was not 
abolished till 1827 for commoners, while for peers it continued till 
1841. 

75 19 Paveant illi, etc. : As far as I can discover, St. Peter is nowhere 
reported to have used any such expression, though the joke is doubt- 
less of considerable antiquity, of French origin one would say. A 
similar contrast is found in Matt. xxvi. ^3^ but the verb used in the 
Vulgate is scandalizo. 

75 25 In an old act of parliament: i Edw. VI, c. 12, s. 14, which was 
passed in 1547. See Stephen, Hist, of the Crim. Law of England, I, 462. 

75 31 Judge Rolls : a mistake for Judge Rolle. Henry Rolle (1589?- 
1656) was an eminent member of the English bar, for some years a 
member of Parliament, and became lord chief justice of England under 
the Commonwealth. His Abridgment des plusienrs Cases et Resolutions 
del Com7/iun Ley was published in 1668, two volumes, folio. 

76 8 Who was himself a writer, etc. : Henry VIII wrote a book 
against Luther, the Assertio Septe?n Sacranientorwn (1521), which drew 
an angry reply from the reformer. lu 1543 he wrote a preface for 
A necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man, which was 
known as "the king's book." Gairdner {Henry VLLL in Diet. N^at. 
Biog.) also states that his hand can be recognized in many of the letters 
and manifestoes, both in Latin and English, which were issued under 
his royal authority. 

76 31 Shakespeare : The dates of the four dramatists, in the order 
named, are 1564-1616, i573?-i637, 1579-1625, 1584-1616. 

77 1 Machiavel's advice : The reference is to Machiavelli's Prince, 
chap, xxvi, apparently, where he says (ed. Morley, p. 161): "Nothing 



NOTES 195 

makes so much to the honour of a new prince as new laws and new 
orders invented by him," etc. 

77 4 The last of this quadrumvirate : the last to die, that is. During 
the latter part of his life Jonson enjoyed an undisputed and unique 
authority over his younger contemporaries. Herrick's Ode for Ben 
Jonson in Hesperides and his own Leges Conviviales give us vivid pic- 
tures of the gatherings of the " tribe of Ben." 

77 10 John Dryden to be their king: Dryden (1631-1700) was as 
autocratic a literary dictator as England has ever known. Though not 
a man who acted on mature reflection, he set and changed fashions both 
by precept and example. Thus he popularized the heroic play and 
later caused it to be abandoned. Nevertheless, he did not attain or retain 
his position without question. An account of his controversies with 
Howard, Buckingham, Settle, Rochester, and others would be a biog- 
raphy. The dastardly attack upon him in 1679, when he was set upon 
at night by hired bravoes, probably the tools of Rochester, shows the 
acrimony which characterized some of these quarrels. 

77 17 Pride, folly, malice, etc.: Pope, An Essay on Criticism^ 458, 
459. The second and third words in the first line are misplaced. 
The particular "parson" referred to was Jeremy Collier, whose Short 
Viezv of the Iinmorality and Profaneness of the English Stage (1698) 
involved him in a quarrel with Dryden. The "critics" and "beaus" 
were Buckingham, who had a share in The Rehearsal (167 1), which 
ridiculed Dryden, and Rochester, who was alternately his patron and 
his dearest foe. 

77 22 King Alexander, surnamed Pope: It would be impossible in a 
brief note to discuss Pope's relations to his contemporaries. Fielding's 
description is but little exaggerated. See Leslie Stephen, Alexander 
Pope, and Pope's Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope. The Dunciad first 
appeared in 17 12, was enlarged in 1729, and acknowledged in 1735. 

785 The ingenious Dr. Young: Edward Young (1683-1765), the 
author of several tragedies, The Cofnplamt ; or Night Thoughts on 
Life, Death, ,and Lmmortality, and the series of satires called The 
Universal Passion. 

78 5 Dr. Arbuthnot: John Arbuthnot (1667-1735), wit, physician, 
friend of Swift and Pope, was a member of the so-called " Scriblerus 
Club" and contributed to the Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus. 

78 6 Mr. Gay: John Gay (1685-1732) had a varied career and was 
on good terms with most of the literary men of his time, including 
Pope. He was, indeed, the chartered satirist of the age, and was 



196 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

doubtless given the more freedom because of his happy and careless 
nature. 

78 15 No. XIX is taken from Covent-Garden Journal^ February 4, 
1752, No. 10. 

78 15 The motto here is from Horace, A7's Foetica, 270-272. Nostri 
should read vestri. 

78 19 Tom D'Urfey : Thomas D'Urfey (1653-1723), a poet and dram- 
atist better loved as a man than regarded as a literary figure, even in 
his own day. His work is now forgotten save for certain songs said 
by his biographers in the Did. Nat. Biog. still to be heard in Scotland. 
His dramas are worthless, but he was a fluent song writer and a genu- 
ine w^it. 

78 19 Tom Brown: Thomas Brown (1663-1704), satirist, was worse 
tempered than D'Urfey and not so versatile. He attacked most of his 
literary contemporaries, including Dryden and D'Urfey. 

78 27 Jack-puddings : buffoons or clowns, especially such as attend 
on mountebanks. 

79 5 As Horace says : Satires., i, i, 24, 25. 

79 13 As the ingenious author of Clarissa says : In the Preface to 
Clarissa Harlowe Richardson says : " It will probably be thought tedi- 
ous to all such as dip into it, expecting a light novel or transitory 
romance ; and look upon the story in it (interesting as that is generally 
allowed to be) as its sole end., rather than as a vehicle to the instruc- 
tion." See Introduction., pp. xix, xx, xlv-xlvii, for an account of Fielding's 
relations to Richardson. 

80 8 Rabelais, and Aristophanes : Fielding's views must have changed 
very radically from the time when he was writing Tom Jones. See 
No. II. His estimate is, from any point of view, decidedly unjust. 

80 27 Quid verum, etc.: Horace, Epistles, i, i, 11, 12 — to Maecenas, 
replying to regrets that he had ceased to wTite. 

81 11 I mention these [Seneca and Plutarch] rather than Plato and 
Aristotle, etc. : Fielding's statement is very true. Before the time 
when Fielding wrote (1752) there was no translation of Plato's com- 
plete works in English save that taken from the French of Dacier; and 
Aristotle had still to wait more than fifty years for his Taylor, though 
he was represented by translations of individual works. On the other 
hand, both Seneca and Plutarch had often been translated, the former 
by Wyttynton (1546), by Golding (1578), by Thomas Lodge (1614), by 
Freeman (1635), by Sir Roger L'Estrange (1678), etc.; the Lives of 
the latter by North (1579), whose work was often reprinted, and "by 



NOTES 197 

several hands" with a Life by Dryden (1683-1686), while the Morals 
were equally well known to English readers. 

82 6 Longinus : See No. XII, note to p. 45, 1. 25. 

82 14 Pons Asinorum : The name is frequently applied to the fifth 
proposition of the first book of Euclid, — the first difficult theorem and 
accordingly a stumbling-block to dullards. This was probably what 
Fielding had in mind. The term is wrongly applied to the Pythagorean 
proposition (I, 47), where it has no special meaning. The origin of the 
term is very doubtful. It occurs in its French form, pont aux dues, as 
early as the fifteenth century. 

82 25 " All men " says Cicero : I have not been able to discover any 
passage in Cicero of which this is an exact translation, though it some- 
what resembles one in the Archias, viii. 

83 9 Quotation of St. Paul: i Corinthians xv. 33. Found in the 
comic poet Menander's Thais, as see Fragmenta, ed. Meineke, p. 75. 
It is probable that Paul recognized the epigram simply as a Greek 
saying. 

83 12 No. XX is taken from Jonathan Wild, Book i, chap. i. This 
selection and the following, both from Jonathan Wild, have a curious 
resemblance to the account of the character and death of Charles I 
given by Clarendon in the eleventh book of his History of the Rebellion. 
A comparison between the two, with further reference to other parts 
of Jonathan Wild, leads me to believe that Fielding had Clarendon 
in mind and half mockingly copied his style while composing the history 
of the '* great man " who died at Tyburn. 

The paragraph beginning " Of this kind " reads very differently in 
the edition of Murphy, which is presumably taken from the revised 
edition of 1754 and is therefore usually followed. "Of this kind was 
the illustrious person whose history we now undertake ; to whom, tho' 
nature had given the greatest and most shining endowments, she had 
not given them absolutely pure and without allay. Tho' he had much 
of the admirable in his character, as much perhaps as is usually to be 
found in a hero, I will not yet venture to affirm that he was entirely free 
from all defects, or that the sharp eyes of censure could not spy out 
some little blemishes lurking amongst his many great perfections." 

In the paragraph beginning " But before we enter," the sentence 
" Now, tho' the writer," etc., as far as " great perfection," reads in 
Murphy: "It seems therefore very unlikely that the same person 
should possess them both ; and yet nothing is more usual with writers, 
who find many instances of greatness in their favourite hero, than to 



198 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

make him a compliment of goodness into the bargain ; and this, with- 
out considering that by such means they destroy the . . .," etc. 

There is an unusual number of other changes in the text of this 
selection, though most of them are of little consequence. Only the 
first part of the chapter as it appears in Jonathan Wild is here reprinted. 

84 9 An Aristides or a Brutus, a Lysander or a Nero : One would expect 
two contrasting pairs, but it is difficult to work out any such arrange- 
ment. Aristides, " the Just," the Athenian statesman and soldier of the 
fifth century B.C., is a type of glorious integrity. Brutus may refer 
either to Lucius Junius Brutus of Roman legend, the destroyer of the 
Tarquins, or to Marcus Junius Brutus, the conspirator against Caesar. 
In the former case he must be regarded as a type of virtue, and in the 
latter he cannot be regarded as a complete villain. Lysander, again, is 
on the side of goodness. He was the Spartan general of the fifth and 
fourth centuries B.C. who broke the power of Athens. As to Nero, 
there is unfortunately no question of his status in the minds of every 
one. 

85 17 As an example of his benevolence : a reference to Plutarch's 
account of the magnanimity of Alexander towards the mother, wife, 
and daughters of Darius after the defeat and flight of that king in 

85 22 As an evidence of his generosity: a reference to Caesar's treat- 
ment of such followers as Mamurra. 

86 13 No. XXI is taken ixoxa Jonathan Wild, Book iv, chap. xvi. 

87 1 Honesty : Fielding's etymology, as usual, is somewhat fanciful. 
Honesty is derived from OF. (Ji)oneste, which comes in turn from Lat. 
honestas, from honestus, "honest," or perhaps hoTios, "honor." It 
naturally has nothing to do with the Greek 6vo%, " an ass," as Fielding 
must have known. 

87 15 Prigs : In thieves' slang prig is the name for a thief. 

89 7 In that of King Charles the first: This must be a reference to the 
Eikon Basilike, a little book published just after the execution of 
Charles. It purported to be the work of his hand and the revelation 
of his inmost thoughts, though it was in reality written by Dr. John 
Gauden. It nowhere lays down twelve rules, but does devote one 
chapter of moral instruction to the young prince, Charles. 

89 25 A Privilege to kill, etc. : I do not know whence this is taken. 

89 29 Laetius est, etc. : I have not discovered the source of this verse. 

90 12 No. XXII is taken from Amelia, Book xi, chap. ii. Only the 
latter part of the chapter is reprinted. 



NOTES 199 

90 22 This is all mere Utopia : that is, an impracticable dream. The 
name comes from Sir Thomas More's political romance, published in 
Latin in 15 16, De Optimo Reipublicae Statu^ deqite Nova Insula Utopia. 
It was translated into English by Ralph Robynson in 1551, by Gilbert 
Burnet in 1684, and by Arthur Cayley in 1808. It is usually called 
Utopia simply, from the island of " Nowhere " on which More fixed his 
ideal state. 

92 30 As Livy tells us: See Book xxvi of his history. 

93 9 Oliver Cromwell carried, etc.: The contrasting views of modern 
historians as to the success of Cromwell's policy are well illustrated by 
the following statements from two most excellent biographies. " Yet 
the great position in Europe which Cromwell's energy had gained for 
England impressed the imagination of his contemporaries. . . . Crom- 
well's foreign policy was in part a failure, but only in part. He pro- 
moted the material welfare of his country and saved her from foreign 
interference in her domestic affairs. Where he sought purely national 
interests he succeeded, but it was impossible for him not to look beyond 
England." — Charles Firth, Oliver Cromwell (\c)o6), pp. 387 and 389. 
" It has sometimes been said that Oliver made England respected in 
Europe. It would be more in accordance with truth to say that he 
made her feared." — S. R. Gardiner, Oliver Cromwell (1901), p. 318. 

93 18 One worthless Man, etc. : I have not been able to trace this 
quotation to its source. 

94 7 Things ill begun, etc. : Macbeth^ III, ii, 55. Macbeth says : 

Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill. 

94 19 Put himself on his country: that is, appeal to the country in a 
general election. 

95 9 As Augeas did : a reference to the labor of Hercules. 

96 1 No. XXIII is taken from Tom Jones, Book vii, chap, i. 

96 1 The world hath been often compared to the theatre : A bibliog- 
raphy of this metaphor would lead one far afield. Aside from Jacques' 
famous speech in As You Like It, II, vii, references to it are common 
in Greek, Latin, and English before Shakespeare's time, so that it had 
become proverbial. For example, the saying is attributed to Pythagoras 
and occurs in a Greek epigram. Petronius Arbiter has " totus mundus 
exerceat, histrionam," and The Legend of Orpheus and Etirydice (1597) 
expresses the same thought. " Totus mundus agit histrionem " was the 
motto of the Globe Theatre. See Furness, As You Like It (Variorum ed.), 
for further references. 



200 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

96 4 Thespis : the reputed father of Greek tragedy. He is said to 
have been the first to introduce an actor on the stage and so to have 
changed the choral recitation into crude drama. Horace in his Ars 
Poetica, 276, says that he went about in a v^agon as a strolUng player. 

96 14 St. James's is more likely, etc. : that is, the fashionable quarter 
of the town than the chief playhouse, the Theatre Royal in Drury 
Lane. 

96 18 As Aristotle calls it, an imitation: in the Poetics, passim. 

97 6 The Greeks called them both, etc. : The Greek word for " ex- 
pounder," as of dreams, viroKpiTi^s, was also used of players and in a 
metaphorical sense of dissemblers, whence our " hypocrite." 

97 10 Life's a poor player : Macbeth, V, v, 24-26. Macbeth speaks : 

Life 's but a walking shadow, a poor player 
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage 
Arid then is heard no more. 

97 15 The Deity : This is a reference to the Deity, a Poem, [by Sam- 
uel Boyse], published in 1739. The author (1708-1749) was the son of 
a dissenting minister and was educated at the University of Glasgow. 
In spite of excellent introductions to the world of letters he had 
neither steadiness nor application, and he lived a life of misery in Lon- 
don. The Deity, his best known poem, was inspired by Pope's Essay 
on Man. Fielding's praise of it may well have been prompted by his 
knowledge of Boyse's poverty. 

98 9 After the paragraph ending "at the Theatre Royal" five short 
paragraphs are omitted. 

98 19 Garrick: See No. IX, note to p. 32, 1. 20. According to the 
best accounts Garrick was no less excellent in comedy than in tragedy. 
Mrs. Clive, the actress, is said to have exclaimed in an angry mood, 
"D — n him, he could act a gridiron." Compare Partridge's sneer, Tom 
Jones, Book xvi, chap. v. 

98 22 Scipio the Great and Laelius the Wise: P. Cornelius Scipio 
^milianus Africanus Minor was the adopted son of the great con- 
queror's elder son. He was both a learned man and a successful gen- 
eral. His friendship with Gaius Laelius Sapiens, a statesman and 
patron of literature, was celebrated by Cicero in Laelitcs (de Amicitia). 
Horace couples their names in Satires, ii, i, 65-74. 

99 5 The famous nil admirari: Horace, Epistles, i, vi, i. 

99 14 Mr. William Mills ( .? -1750): the son of John Mills, the 
great actor who died in 1736, whence he was known as "the younger 



I 



NOTES 20 1 

Mills." He does not seem to have inherited his father's talent, though 
his Julius Caesar is praised by Davies, Dramatic Miscellanies. 

99 24 No. XXIV is taken ixom. Joseph Andrews, Book iii, chap. vi. 
After parting with Mr. Wilson, Parson Adams, Fanny, and Joseph 
Andrews are taking their midday meal in a " kind of natural amphi- 
theatre " where " the soil was spread with a verdure which no paint 
could imitate." There Joseph launches on the discourse that forms the 
subject of this selection. The first part of the chapter only is here 
reprinted. 

100 15 Laceman : one who manufactures or deals in lace. 

100 22 Ammyconni: Jacopo Amigoni or Amiconi (167 5-1752) was a 
painter of superficial brilliancy who had great vogue in England about 
this time. He was born at Venice but lived much of his life in Ger- 
many, England, and Spain. He died at Madrid as court painter, but he 
has been long forgotten. 

100 22 Paul Varnish : Paolo Veronese (1528-1588) was born at Verona 
but lived most of his life at Venice, where his work can best be seen. 

100 23 Hannibal Scratchi : Annibale Carracci (i 560-1609) was born 
at Bologna, where with his brother and cousin he founded a school of 
painting which had a lasting but not altogether good influence on Italian 
art. He died in Rome. 

100 23 Hogarthi : William Hogarth. See No. IV, note to p. 12, 1. 31. 

101 16 A man that lived at a place called Ross : John Kyrle (1637- 
1724) was educated at Oxford and entered at the Middle Temple, but 
after leaving the university retired to his estates at Ross, on the Wye, 
where he lived all his days a severely simple and very useful life. His 
philanthropic deeds on a comparatively small income brought him more 
than local fame, which was greatly increased by Pope, who celebrated 
him in his Moral Essays, Epistle iii. To Allen, Lord Bathtirst, as "the 
Man of Ross." From that time (1732) his real name was well-nigh for- 
gotten. Pope's lines (249-274 in Elwin-Courthope ed.) begin : 

But all our praises why should Lords engross .-• 
Rise, honest Muse ! and sing the Man of Ross. 

101 17 Another at the Bath : Ralph Allen. See No. II, note to p. 5, 
1. 18. The " stately house" was Prior Park, near Bath. 

102 1 This extract (No. XXV) includes only part of Book ii, chap, 
xiii oi Joseph Andrews, from which it is taken. 

102 14 Person of fashion : Fielding has put the cart before the horse. 
See N'ew Eng. Diet., "fashion sb. 12. (Man, woman) of fashion." It is 



202 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

shown that the phrase meant first " of high quality or breeding " and 
gradually merged into the current use : " That moves in upper-class 
society, and conforms to its rules with regard to dress," etc, 

102 20 Correspondence: intercourse, communication; now' obsolete 
in this sense, except of communication by letters, but common in the 
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 

102 25 His Majesty's Bear-garden. The bear garden at Hockley 
Hole was a popular place of resort in the eighteenth century, though 
neither the entertainment (bull baiting as well as bear baiting, etc.) nor 
the company was very worshipful. See Spectator^ No. 141, where Steele 
refers to the devotees of such sport as showing "no characteristic of 
the human species but risibility." 

102 29 Exalt themselves at church: either a reference to the choir 
stalls, where those of high rank had seats, as in St. James's Church, or 
to structures of a different type with galleries. 

103 9 Mrs. Slipslop : Lady Booby's maid m. Joseph Aiidrezus. 

104 5 No. XXVI is taken from Journal oj a Voyage to Lisbon, 
July 21, 1754. 

105 ] Every man who hath three hundred pounds per annum: This 
statement scarcely conforms to English usage at any time. Before the 
Norman conquest, to be sure, every freeman w^as required to attend the 
folk moot but not the witenagemot. The property qualification of 
_^300 per annum did not appear till 17 10, when that sum was fixed as 
the income necessary for the representative of a borough or town. It 
did not imply, however, that a reluctant citizen could be forced to rep- 
resent a constituency. See Medley, Eng. Const. Hist., p. 181. 

105 15 Sheriff in particular : The office of hereditary sheriff was not 
abolished till 1784. 

106 1 Last vagrant act : a reference to the act of 1744 (17 Geo. II, 
c. 5), w^hich dealt, among other offenders, with " all persons who, not 
having wherewith to maintain themselves, live idly without employ- 
ment and refuse to work for the usual and common wages given to 
other labourers on the like work, in the parishes or places where they 
then are." The poor laws of England, based on modifications of the 
vicious act of 1601, were not effectually bettered till 1834. Fielding, 
it will be remembered, had printed in 1753 Proposals for Making an 
Effectual Provision for the Poor. 

106 11 Spunges and raps : gets by mean sycophancy or stealing. 
Spunges is Fielding's usual orthography for sponges, while rap in this 
sense is now obsolete. 



NOTES 203 

107 ] No. XXVII is taken from Covent-Garden Journal^ June 20, 
1752, No. 49. The motto here is from the beginning of iii, i, of 
Horace's Odes. 

107 3 In a former paper: Covent-Garden Joiirnal, No. 47, June 13, 
1752, a week before the present essay appeared. 

107 9 The people or mob in old Rome : This reference implies a con- 
fusion in Fielding's mind between the veto power exercised by the 
tribune of the plebs over decrees of the senate and the right of making 
leges held by the assembly of the people. 

107 12 In the case of the gin-act: In 1736 an act was passed to cur- 
tail the sale of spirituous liquors, especially gin, by the imposition of 
heavy taxes. Riots followed. See the excellent account in Lecky, 
England in the Eighteenth Centnry, I, 517 ff. 

107 27 Laesae mobilitatis: a play on laesae 7?iajestatis, lese majeste. 

108 16 Cardinal de Retz : Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de 
Retz (161 3-1 679), was a distinguished clerical statesman, opponent of 
Mazarin, and archbishop of Paris. After a stormy career he settled 
down in Lorraine and wrote his Memoir es, to which Fielding here 
refers. 

1 08 24 Assert an exclusive right to the river of Thames : In the Specta- 
tor, No. 383, Addison describes Sir Roger's trip on the Thames and gives 
some instances of river manners. Fielding tells of the watermen and 
their exactions in the Voyage to Lisbon. 

109 4 The second exclusive right : There is plenty of other evidence 
that streets of eighteenth-century London were turbulent. 

110 9 That a very new: Between that and a the word the is 
omitted. 

110 11 Out of St. James's-Park on a Sunday evening: St. James's 
Park had long been the fashionable promenade, nor did it lose its 
popularity on account of the occurrences to which Fielding alludes. 
See Goldsmith's Aliscellaneoiis Essays (1759). 

110 24 That act of parliament which was made at the latter end of 
Queen Elizabeth's reign: By an act passed in 1601 the poor rates, estab- 
lished by the statutes of 1572 and 1598, were extended and strength- 
ened. The system thus introduced was never radically changed till 
1834. The essential feature of it was taxation for the benefit of the 
poor and disabled, but in practice these alms became a nuisance. 
See Prothero, Statutes and Constitntional Documents., p. 104. 

Ills Hang sorrow, cast away care : I have been unable to find any 
such song in the collections at my disposal. 



204 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

112 1 No. XXVIII is taken from Covent-Garden Jotcrnal, July i8, 
1752, No. 55. The motto is from Lucretius, De rerum naUira, i, 927, 
928. 

112 5 It hath been observed, etc.: by Congreve in his essay on 
humor ; referred to below, Letters tipoii Several Occasions, p. 95. 

113 7 By Aristotle in his treatise on comedy: Aristotle treated 
comedy in the Poetics, as is known from the reference in chap, vi, § i, 
where he says that he will come to it later on. That part of the 
Poetics is, however, in Fielding's phrase, " unhappily lost." There was 
not a separate treatise on comedy, as Fielding's words might imply. 
A work by a late Greek writer, Ilepl Kcj/ncpdias (ed. G. Kaibel, Abhand- 
lungen der konigl. Gesellschaft der Wissensch. ztc Gottingen, 1898), 
is unquestionably based on Aristotle, but it is exceedingly doubtful 
whether it correctly represents Aristotle's doctrine. 

113 11 Mr. Congreve, in a letter to Mr. Dennis: In Letters upon Sev- 
eral Occasions, published by John Dennis in 1696, there is an essay 
Concerning Humour in Comedy, sent by William Congreve to Dennis on 
July 10, 1695. Fielding here quotes from this work, the only critical 
treatise of any consequence written by the master of the school of 
comedy which flourished at the end of the seventeenth century and 
lived on till the time of Goldsmith and Sheridan. The sentences here 
printed as one extract really come from three different places, pp. 81, 
82, and 90, respectively. It is needless to say that Fielding does not 
quote verbatim, though in this case no serious alterations appear. 

114 1 Ben Johnson : Fielding's customary orthography. The passage 
quoted is taken from the Induction of Evety Man out of his Humour 
(1599), where it is spoken by Asper, who probably represents Jonson 
himself. The use of the terms of mediaeval medicine and philosophy 
is not uncommon in Jonson's works. He follows here the ordinary 
line of reasoning. Ens is a philosophical term meaning an existence, 
entity, or being. It was formed from esse after the analogy of absens, 
etc. Continent, of course, means holding fast to one place, inseparable. 
Effects is usually printed affects and means affections or states of body 
and mind. A rook, a simpleton or gull. Cable hatband, "a twisted cord 
of gold, silver, or silk worn round the hat " (Halliwell, Dictionary of 
Arch, and Prov. Words). Three piled, three-tiered. I cannot understand 
why quotation marks inclose six lines, as they do in the text. 

115 1 Will amount to this: Fielding's explanation, though "let 
loose from that stiff boddice " of which he complains in Jonson, is not 
altogether clear unless one understands the underlying idea of humor 



NOTES 



205 



which it presupposes. In ancient and mediaeval physiology a, humor 
was one of the four chief fluids of the body, — blood, phlegm, choler, 
and melancholy. Disease, it was believed, was the result of the undue 
excess of some one of these " cardinal humors," and by the proportion 
of them was determined a man's natural temperament. The idea 
rested on the belief that the " elements," out of which everything was 
made, were earth, air, fire, and water. Earth was said to be cold and 
dry, air hot and moist, etc. From the body, as Fielding says, these 
notions were applied to the mind, so that Jonson's notion of humor 
implied the habitual mood or mental disposition natural to one's 
temperament. 

115 15 As Mr. Congreve observes: in the essay previously cited, 
p. 81. This is a free paraphrase of the passage. 

115 ]7 Quot homines, tot sententiae : Terence, Phormio, II, iv, 14. 
*' Many men, many minds." Cicero also uses the phrase, De Finibtis, 
i, 15. 

115 26 Excess, says Horace: Satires, i, ii, which is summed up in 
the twenty-fourth verse : 

Dum vitant stulti vitia, in contraria currunt. 

115 29 Says the judicious Abbe Bellegarde : See No. IV, note to 
p. 13, 1. 25. The observation to which Fielding refers is at the very 
beginning of the work Reflexions siir le ridicule. 

116 3 It is the same ambition, etc. : a happy reference to the ambi- 
tious plot of Stephano and Trinculo with Caliban to kill Prospero, 
whereby Stephano is to become "king and queen, — save our graces !" 
Tempest, especially Act III, sc. ii. 

116 5 The same avarice, etc.: George Lillo (1693-1739) produced 
his Fatal Curiosity in 1736. In this bombastic tragedy young Wilmot, 
who has returned to England after a long absence in India, intrusts a 
casket of jewels to his mother. Not suspecting his identity, the mother 
persuades old Wilmot to kill his son for the sake of the treasure. With 
reference to Moliere's VAvare, it must be recalled that Fielding had 
translated it as The Miser in 1733. 

116 7 The same jealousy: again a comparison of small things with 
great. The Suspicious Husband was a comedy by Dr. Benjamin 
Hoadly, son of Bishop Hoadly, which Garrick produced in 1747. It 
turned on the absurd jealousy of a somewhat conventional husband 
and had considerable success at the time, though it had little real 
worth as a play.' 



2o6 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

116 9 Nero had the art of making vanity, etc.: The reference to 
Nero indicates the oft-repeated tale that he set fire to Rome that he 
might have a proper setting for his recitation of the Homeric hymns, 
Rome replacing Troy. Domitian " made cruelty ridiculous " when, in 
default of greater victims, he was found torturing flies. 

116 14 The two great masters: that is, Jonson and Congreve, as 
above. 

117 6 No. XXIX is taken from Covent-Garden Journal., July 25, 
1752, No. 56. The motto here is from Horace's Odes, iii, vi, 19. 

117 8 At the conclusion of my last paper : No. XXVIII. 

118 6 The ingenious Abbe : Abbe Bellegarde. See notes to p. 13, 1. 25, 
and p. 115, 1. 29. The quotation is found at the beginning of the first 
treatise in Reflexions S74r le ridicule. Fielding quotes from the original, 
not the translation. 

119 2 Party: that is, politics. 

120 10 The excellent lessons on the ridiculous : again a reference to 
Bellegarde. 

121 18 Of modern times, the whist master: The first description of 
whist is said to be in The Compleat Gamester by Cotton (1674). It did 
not become a fashionable game, however, till towards the middle of 
the following century. Hoyle published his Short Treatise in 1743, and 
in the same year Fielding {Jonathan Wild, Book i, chap, iv) spoke of 
" whisk and swabbers " as the game then in vogue. 

122 18 No. XXX was first printed in vol. I of Miscellanies (1743). 
Compare with this essay Lord Shaftesbury's Sensus Communis : An 
Essay 071 the Freedom oj Wit and Humour in Characteristicks, Treatise ii. 
Fielding was evidently familiar with that work, as he shows by numer- 
ous references scattered through his books. He did not, of course, 
copy it in any sense. 

123 28 The primitive and literal sense of this word: This interpreta- 
tion is more trustworthy than is usual with Fielding's linguistic obser- 
vations. The word converse as such never meant " turn round together," 
but the Latin verb conversari had that primitive meaning, though used 
in other ways most commonly. Fielding employs conversation in its 
old and broader sense of " social intercourse." It is so used by 
Shakespeare. 

125 16 An Enquiry into Happiness: The only published work of 
which I know that would at all correspond to this reference is A71 
Inquiry concerjiing Virtue and Happiness. In a Letter to a Friend, 
by P. Glover, ed. C. Plumptre, 1751. A copy of this work is in the 



NOTES 207 

British Museum, though I can find nothing of its author and have not 
access to the vokime itself. 

1269 Give us our Wildness and our Woods: from The Tragedy of 
Jtilitis CcEsar, altered : with a Prologue and Chorus, by John Sheffield, 
Duke of Buckingham (1648-1721). The quotation, here printed as 
two lines, is really the last line of the third stanza of the chorus which 
was designed to be sung between the first and second acts. The altered 
play is one of the most curious of Shakespearean adaptations. 

127 13 Do unto all men, etc. : Matthew vii. 12. Commonly misquoted 
as here. 

128 13 Insani sapiens nomen ferat, etc. : Epistles, i, vi, 15, 16. 

128 23 Florus . . . says: Epitomae de Tito Livo, i, i, 7. The pas- 
sage describes Tarquin the Proud, and runs : " Set ipse in senatum 
caedibus, in plebem verberibus, in omnis superbia, quae crudelitate 
gravior est bonis, grassatus, cum saevitiam domi fatigasset, tandem in 
hostes conversus est." 

129 29 See the Earl of C : Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, 

is undoubtedly meant. See p. 158, 1. 5. 

130 5 Lord Shaftsbury hath a pretty observation: Characteristicks, 
A Letter concerning Enthicsiasm, ed. 1733, I, 35, 36. 

131 2 Mandarines: the form now universally accepted is mandarin. 
13131 Improper: ill-clad or untidy. 

132 2 Dishabille : This word, once thoroughly domesticated, has now 
reverted to its French form when used by educated persons. The use 
of it by Fielding in this form indicates the fashion of his day, though 
we should employ en deshabille if we used the phrase at all. 

133 24 At a gaming table : One clause is here omitted. 

133 29 P W : This seems to be a reference to Paul White- 
head (1710-1774), a somewhat disreputable satirist, who was later 
placed in comfortable circumstances by his intimacy with Sir Francis 
Dashwood and other politicians. At the time when this was written he 
had not become a government hanger-on and was still in poverty, though 
no longer an inhabitant of Fleet Prison, as he had been yet earlier. 

137 29 A third at ombre, or a fourth at whisk and quadrille : Ombre was 
a popular game of cards played without the eights, nines, and tens, and 
usually by three persons. Whisk was the earlier orthography of whist. 
Quadrille was similar to ombre but was played by four persons. 

138 30 The universal passion: apparently a reference to The Univer- 
sal Passion, by Edward Young (see No. XVIII, note to p. 78, 1. 5), a 
series of satires begun in 1725 and collected in 1728. Though its subject 



2o8 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

is rather " love of fame " than pride, there is a considerable passage in 
Satire i, beginning " What is not proud ? " 

138 31 The foible of great minds: This suggests Milton's reference 
to ambition in Lycidas : 

Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise 

(That last infirmity of noble mind) 

To scorn delights, and live laborious days. 

140 6 Pope or Young : It need occasion no surprise that Young's 
name is thus coupled with Pope's, since at that day he vyras held in 
scarcely less esteem. For his dates and w^orks, see No. XVIII, note on 
p. 78, 1. 5- 

140 8 Quin or Garrick: James Quin (1693-1766), an Irish actor, first 
became know^n in 17 16 in London. He was the rival of Garrick at the 
maturity of his powers but never was his equal in tragedy. For Gar- 
rick, see note to p. 32, 1. 20. 

140 21 Oblations: offerings made to the church. 

142 12 That noble person : Chesterfield again. 

147 22 Let Socrates, for instance, etc. : as in Plato's Phaedo. 

147 23 Plato reason on the native beauty of virtue: as in the Meno, 
Phaedrtis, and Republic. 

147 24 Aristotle on his occult qualities: as in the Categories and 
Metaphysics, where Aristotle elaborates his theory of the nature of 
being. Occult is to be understood in a very general sense. 

147 33 Hath not Socrates heard of harmony : Socrates speaks of 
harmony very frequently in the works of Plato. See, for example. 
Republic, iii, 401, 402. 

147 33 Plato, who draws virtue in the person of a fine woman: This 
seems to be a confused recollection by Fielding of the -story about 
Hercules which Xenophon tells in Memorabilia, ii, i, 21 ff. The hero 
while a youth was said to have met two women. Pleasure and Virtue, 
who in turn urged him to follow them. Both women are described 
with some detail. In Plato I can find nothing similar. 

148 2 Hath not Aristotle himself written a book on motion : his 
Physics. 

155 10 The fable of the Lap-Dog and the Ass : The ass tried to emu- 
late the lap-dog by caressing its master, but was beaten for its pains 
instead of being received graciously. The fable is a widespread one. 
It was known very early in Asia and is found in yEsop, 212. La Fontaine, 
Fables, iv, v, Vane et le petit chien, gives a pleasant version of it. 



NOTES 209 

155 22 Name of buffoons : A clause is omitted after these words. 

155 30 Omne vafer vitium, etc. : Persius, Satires^ i, 116-118. Coving- 
ton rendered the passage (ed. Nettleship, 2d ed. revised, 1874) : 
" Horace, the rogue, manages to probe every fault while making his 
friend laugh ; he gains his entrance, and plays about the innermost 
feelings, with a sly talent for tossing up his nose and catching the 
public on it." 

156 1 The late ingenious translator of that obscure author: Thomas 
Brewster, who was born in 1705 and was educated at St. John's College, 
Oxford. In 1733, while yet at Oxford, he published a translation of the 
Second Satire of Persms in English verse and followed it up with the 
other satires in succeeding years. According to Lowndes's Manual, 
the first edition (presumably complete) was published in 1741, but 
A. Goodwin in Diet. Nat. Biog. says that the third and fourth together 
and the fifth separately did not appear till 1742. The date of Brewster's 
death is unknown. 

157 10 Quid de quoque viro, etc.: Horace, Epistles., i, xviii, 68. The 
last word in the verse should be videto instead of caveto. 

157 19 Hew a Carcase for Hounds : Julius Ccesar, II, i, 4 : 

Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds. 

158 4 The cowardice of A — le : John Campbell, second Duke of 
Argyle or Argyll and Duke of Greenwich (1678-1743), was a prominent 
figure in several wars and also played an important part in politics. 
He was an important factor in bringing about the Scottish union and 
put down Mar's insurrection in 171 5. He died on October 4, 1743, 
only a few months after Fielding published the Miscellanies. 

158 5 The dulness of Ch — d: Philip Dormer Stanhope, fourth Earl 
of Chesterfield (1694-1773), the famous wit and statesman, is here 
referred to. His reputation in literature is sustained by his Letters to 
his natural son and to his godson, which were published posthumously. 
He was a man of sagacity and real worth in spite of his worldliness 
and low ethical standards. He opposed the Licensing Act of 1737 in 
the House of Lords, thereby doing Fielding a good turn. 

158 5 The unpoliteness of D — ^ton : This must refer to George Bubb 
Dodington, Lord Melcombe (1691-1762), a famous but not particularly 
able statesman of the time. He was in several ministries and in 1743 
was allied with Argyll, though his political vacillations were notorious. 
As a man of great wealth and some scholarship, he was fond of posing 
as a patron of literature. Fielding's epistle Of True Greatness., in the 



2IO SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

Miscellanies^ was addressed to him, as poems by Young and Thomson 
had been earlier. He was made a peer in 1761. 

158 6 And thus Lyt — n: George Lyttelton. See No. II, note to p. 
5, 1. 18. 

159 1 No. XXXI was first printed in vol. I of Miscellanies (1743). 

159 17 A hardy wit in the reign of Charles II. : John Wilmot, Earl of 
Rochester (1647-1680), wrote the short and not particularly amusing 
poem Upon Nothings to which Fielding refers. George Farquahar 
( 1 678-1 707) wrote a Song on a Trifle, appended to The Stage-Coach, 
which is far better turned and in the same vein. 

160 3 Ex Nihilo nihil Fit : The Latin adage is usually referred to 
Lucretius, De rerum natura, i, 205 : 

Nil igitur fieri de nilo posse fatendumst. 

160 4 By Shakespeare, in Lear : I, iv, 131 : 

Lear. Why, no, boy ; nothing can be made out of nothing. 

163 4 The Argive, mentioned by Horace: Epistles, ii, ii, 1 28-131. 
Laetos in the text should read laettis. 

164 22 A poet, famous for being so sublime : apparently Milton. 

165 7 Posthumous Eclogues of a late ingenious young gentleman : I 
regret that I have been unable to identify these eclogues. 

168 21 Caput triumphati Orbis: Ovid, Ai7iores, ii, xv, 26: 

Roma, triumphati dum caput orbis eris. 

169 7 Is to produce : Between to ^lW^ pro dice e, be is omitted. 

169 9 The great Mr. Hobbes : Thomas Hobbes (i 588-1679) of Malmes- 
bury, the great political philosopher. The Leviathan (1651) is per- 
haps his best-known work, though most of his writings, both in Latin 
and in English, show the same clearness of exposition as that book. 
He was a thorough nominalist but was little influenced by Bacon's 
conception of the importance of systematic experiment, though for a 
time Bacon's amanuensis. That he was fond of paradox is shown in 
the somewhat confused exposition of his theory of the place of passions 
in " conceptions and apparitions,^'' which Fielding here gives. We may 
paraphrase the latter part of the paragraph thus : " In the pursuit of 
ends agreeable to oneself, the means themselves cannot be separated 
from the ends in view. Thus in following ambition, a man virtually 
follows plotting, fighting, danger, difficulty, etc. ; in following avarice, 
he pursues starving, cheating, watching, and numberless painful things 



NOTES 211 

which are concomitant with the passion of avarice." This is, of course, 
no adequate treatment of Hobbes's doctrine, but it seems to be fair 
enough as far as it goes. For a rather full treatment of the theory, 
see his Human Nature (circulated in manuscript in 1640, published in 
1650), chap, vii (ed. Molesworth, 1740, IV, 31 ff.). 

170 12 No. XXXII is taken from Tom Jones ^ Book xviii, chap, i. 

171 22 No man detests and despises scurrility more than myself: For 
the truth of this statement, see Introdtiction, Ixxiii-lxxvi. Fielding is 
quite within the limits of fact in saying that no man " has ever been 
treated with more " coarse abuse. Even granting that his work had 
not been free from coarseness, it could not have been pleasant for 
him to be called a ruffian. Moreover, he had had " abusive writings " 
fathered on him to a disagreeable extent, for example, The Golden 
Rump and the Caiisidicade. 

171 32 The weekly productions of his abusive contemporaries: in the 
journals of the time. 



CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE ESSAYS SELECTED, 
WITH REFERENCE TO THE WORKS FROM WHICH 
THEY HAVE BEEN TAKEN 

From " Joseph Andrews " (1742) ^ 

No. Page 

IV. \The Cofnic Epic in Prose\. Author's Preface .... 9 
VII. Of writing Lives in General, a7id particularly of Pamela ; 
with a Word by the bye of Colley Gibber attd Others. 

Book I, chap, i 22 

XXV. [^High People and Low People^. A Dissertation concerning 
High People a7id Low People, etc. Book II, chap, xiii 

(in part) 102 

VI. Matter Prefatory in Praise of Biography. Book III, 

chap, i (in part) 18 

XXIV. Moral Reflections by foseph Andrews, etc. Book III, 

chap, vi (in part) 99 

From " Miscellanies " (1743) ^ 

XXX. An Essay on Gonversation. Vol. I 122 

XXXI. Aft Essay on Nothifig. Vol.1 159 

XVI. \^A Literary Gonversation in Elysium\ The Adventures 
which the Author fnet on his First Entrance into 
Elysium. Vol. II, being Book I, chap, viii, of A Journey 

from this World to the Next 63 

XX. Shewing the Wholesome Uses drawn from recording the 
Achievements of those Wonderful Productions of Nature 
called Great Men. Vol. Ill, being Book I, chap, i, of 

Jonathan Wild 83 

XXI. \^The Gharacter of a Great Thief \ The Gharacter of our 
Hero, and the Gonclusion of this History. Vol. Ill, being 
Book IV, chap, xvi, oi fonathan Wild (in part) ... 86 

1 Extracts are taken from the second edition, London, 1742. 

2 Extracts are taken from the first edition, London, 1 743. 

211 



214 SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 

From " Tom Jones " (1749) ^ 

No. Page 

III. yThe Bill of Fare to the Feast\ The Introdtiction to the 

Work, or Bill of B\ire to the Feast. Book I, chap, i . 6 
V. Shewing what Kind of a History this is ; what it is like, 

and what it is not like . Book II, chap, i 16 

VIII. Containing Five Pages of Paper. Book IV, chap, i . . 24 
X. Of the Serious in Writing ; and for what Purpose it is 

introduced. Book V, chap, i 34 

XXIII. A Comparison between the World and the Stage. Book VII, 

chap, i 96 

XIII. \_A Wondefful Long Chapter concerning the Marvellotis~\ ; 

being ?mich the Lotigest of all our Introductory Chapters. 

Book VIII, chap, i 47 

IX. Of those who lawfully may, and of those who may not 

write such Histories as this. Book IX, chap, i ... 28 
XI. Containing Instructions very Necessary to be perused by 

Modern Critics. Book X, chap, i 39 

XII. A Crust for the Critics. Book XI, chap, i 42 

XIV. Shewing what is to be deemed Plagiarism in a Modern 

Author and what is to be considered as Lawful Prize. 

Book XII, chap, i 55 

II. An Invocation. Book XIII, chap, i 3 

XV. An Essay to prove that an Author will write better, for 
having Some Knowledge of the Subject on which he 

writes. Book XIV, chap, i 59 

I. Of Prologues. Book XVI, chap, i I 

XXXII. A Farewell to the Reader. Book XVIII, chap, i . . . 170 

From "Amelia" (1751) ^ 

XVII. Comments upon Authors. Book VIII, chap, v (m part) . 66 
XXII, Matters Political. Book XI, chap, ii (in part) .... 90 

1 Extracts are taken from the first edition, London, 1749. 

2 Extracts are taken from the first edition, London, 1752 (1751). 



CHRONOLOGICAL LIST 21 5 

From the " Co vent-Garden Journal " (1752) 1 

No. Page 

XVIII. \_The Literajy Republic\. Saturday, March 21, No. 23 . 72 

XIX. \^The Purpose of Letters]. Tuesday, February 4, No. 10 78 

XXVII. \^Tke Power of the Mob]. Saturday, June 20, No. 49 . . 107 

XXVIII. \f)n Hicmorous Characters]. Saturday, July 18, No. 55 . 112 

XXIX. {^Contemporary Education]. Saturday, July 25, No. 56 . 117 

From the " Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon " (1755) ^ 
XXVI. [6>w Liberty]. Tuesday, July 21, 1754 104 

1 Extracts are taken from Works, ed. Murphy, London, 1762. 

2 Extract is taken from Works, ed. Murphy, London, 1762. 



INDEX 



A Full Vindication of the Dzichess 

Dowager of Marlborough, xx 
A four ney from this World to the 

Next, xxi, 1, li 
Addison, Joseph, Ixiv, Ixxix, 28, 

64 
Album Studiosorum Academiae 

Lugduno Batavae, xi 
Alexander the Great, 50, 85, 168 
Allen, Ralph, xxiii, 5, 53, 10 1 
Amelia, xvi, xvii, xxiv, xxv, xxvi, 

Iviii-lxii, Ixvi, Ixx, Ixxiv, Ixxvi, 

Ixxviii 
"Amelia," Iviii-lx 
Amigoni, Jacopo, 100 
An Enqiciry into the Causes of the 

late Increase of Robbers, xxvi 
An Essay on Conversation, xxi, 

Ixvii-lxix, 122-158 
A71 Essay on Nothing, Ixvii, Ixix, 

159-170 
Antoninus, 51, 54 
Appearance of Fielding, xxxii 
Arabian Nights, 20 
Arbuthnot, Dr. John, 78 
A(rgy)le (Duke of), 158 
Aristides, 84 
Aristophanes, 5, 80 
Aristotle, 9, 13, 20, 45, 50, 60, 81, 

96, 113, 146, 147, 148 
Arrian, 50 

Atalantis writers, 20 
Augeas, 95 
Author^s Will, xv 



Balzac, Jean-Louis Guez de, 20 

Banier, Abbe, 56 

Bath, 36, 137 

Beaumont, Francis, 76 

Bellegarde, Abbe, 13, 11 5, "118 

Berkeley's Siris, xxix 

Betterton, Thomas, 65 

" Black George," Ixxviii 

" Blifil," Ivi, Ixxviii 

" Bookweight " and his authors, 

xl-xlii 
Booth, Barton, 65 
Bossu, 45 
Brewster, Thomas, translator of 

Persius, 156 
Broughton, John, pugilist, 60 
Brown, Thomas, 78, 81 
Brutus, 84 
Buckingham, George Villiers, Duke 

of, ix, 126 
Butler, Samuel, 24, 49 
Bysshe, Edward, 60 

Caesar, Julius, 85, 168 

Caligula, 51 

Canning, Elizabeth, xxvii 

" Captain Booth," xvi, xvii, xxxiii, 

lix, Ix, 66-72 
Capua, 92 

Carracci, Annibale, 100 
Cato the Elder, 29, 69 
Causidicade, xxii 
Cervantes and Do?t Quixote, xlii, 

xliii, xlvii, 2, 5, 19, 20, 67, 79 



217 



2l8 



SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 



Champion^ xviii, xxxii, Ixv, Ixvi 

Charles I, 89 

Charles II, 77, 159 

Charles XII of Sweden, 50 

Chaucer, Ixxvii 

Chesterfield, Earl of, 129, 158 

Children of Fielding, xx, xxi, xxiii, 

xxix 
Cibber, Colley, xxxiv, xxxix, 22, 

23» 24 
Cibber, Mrs. Theophilus, 32 
Cicero, 57, 59, 60, 82, 98, 122 
Clarendon, Lord, 19, 50 
Clarissa Harlowe, xxiv, Ixxvi, 79 
Claudian, 70 

Clive, Mrs. Catherine, xxxviii, 32 
Cock and Bull, 67 
Coleridge, S. T., Ixxvi 
"Colonel Bath," Ix 
" Colonel James," Ix 
Congreve, William, xxxiv, 61, 113, 

"5 
Covent Garden, 120 

Covent-Garden Journal, xxv, xxvi, 

xxvii, Ixvi, Ixxvii 
Cradock, Charlotte, Fielding's first 

wife, xvi, xxi, 3 
Creech, Thomas, translator of 

Lucretius, 17 
Cromwell, Oliver, 93 
Crowne, John, 40 

Dacier, Andre, 45, 47 
Dacier, Mme., 64, 69 
Daniel, Mary, Fielding's second 

wife, xxii, xxix 
David Simple, by Sarah Fielding, 

X, xxii 
Defoe's Apparition of Mrs. Veale, 

50 



Deity, a Poetn, hy Samuel Boyse, 97 

Demosthenes, 59 

Denbigh, Earls of, ix 

Dennis, John, 113 

Dobson, Austin, x, xi, xv, xix, 

xxii, xxiv, xxvi, xxix, xxxi, xxxii, 

xliii, xlviii, Ixx 
" Doctor Harrison," Ix, Ixi, 90-95 
D(oding)ton (John Bubb), 158 
Domesday Book, 30 
Domitian, 116 
Do7i Qtiixote in England, xvi, 

xxxiii, xlii, xliii 
Drelincourt, Charles, 50 
Dryden, John, xxxv, xxxvi, Ixiv, 

68,77 
D'Urfey, Thomas, 78, 81 

East Stour, xvi 
Echard, Laurence, 19 
Edward VI, 76 
Elizabeth, Queen, 76, no 
Enquiry into Happiness, by P. 

Glover (?), 125, 126 
Essex, John, dancing master, 60 
Etherege, Sir George, 40 
Eton College, x, 5 
Eustathius, 69 
Examples of the Interposition of 

Providence, xxvii 

" Fanny," sweetheart of '* Joseph 

Andrews," loi 
Fielding, Robert, xvii 
Fielding, Edmund, the author's 

father, ix, x 
Fielding, George, ix 
Fielding, Sarah, x, xxii 
Fielding, Mrs. Sarah, the author's 

mother, x 



INDEX 



219 



Fielding, Sir John, xii, xxiv 
Fielding's family, ix, x 
" Firebrand," xliv 
Fletcher, John, 76 
Florus, 128 
Fordhook, xxviii, xxix 
Francis, Philip, 29, 46 

Garrick, David, 32, 98, 140 
Gay, John,xiii, 78 
Gibbon's tribute to Fielding, ix 
Giffard, manager of Goodman's 

Fields, xvii 
Gil Bias, by Le Sage, 19 
Glover, Richard, author of Leon- 

idas, 63 
Gould, Sir Henry, x 
Gray, Thomas, xlviii 
Greenland, 95 
Grub Street, 4 
Guildhall, 17 
Guy of Warwick, 23 



" Huncamunca," xxxvi 
Harlothrtimbo, by Samuel John- 
son, 25 

" lago," 99 

Jack the Giant-Killer, 23 
James I of England, 76 
Johnson, Dr. Samuel, xxv, Ixi, 

Ixxiv, Ixxv 
Jonathan Wild, xxi, 1, li, lii, Ixi, 

Ixxii 
" Jonathan Wild," xxxiii, 84, 86- 

90 
Jonson, Ben, 14, 32, 40, 76, 114 
Joseph Andrezus, xix, xx, xlii, xlv- 

xlix, liii, Ixvi, Ixix, Ixx, Ixxvi 
" Joseph Andrews," xlix, 24, 99, 

100, lOI 
Journal oj a Voyage to Lisbon, 

xxiii, xxviii, Ixii 
Justiceship of Fielding, xxiii, xxv, 



xxvi, xxvii, Iviii 
Hanbury Williams, Sir Charles, x Juvenal, 41 
Harlequin, 37 



Heliogabalus, 8 

Henry V, 50 

Henry VIII, 76 

Herodotus, 50 

Hoadly's Suspicioics Husband, 116 

Hobbes, Thomas, 169 

Hockley Hole, Bear garden at, 

102 
Hogarth, William, xxvi, xxxii, Ixxv, 

12, 61, 100, 140 
Homer, 2, 9, 25, 31, 38, 48, 49, 57, 

59, 60, 64, 68, 69, 70, 72 
Horace, xxxii, 29, 30, 31, 33, 38, 41, 

45, 46, 48, 5I' 57> 78, 79' 80' 99' 
107, 117, 128, 155, 156, 157, 163 



" Lady Bellaston," Ivii, 62 

Laslius, 98 

Lamb, Charles, Ixiv 

Lap-Dog and Ass, 155 

Latreille, F., xiv 

Lee, Nathaniel, xxxvi 

Leonidas, 63 

Leyden, University of, xi, xii, xvi 

Lillo's Fatal Curiosity, 116 

Lincoln's Inn Fields, theatre in, 

xiii 
Lisbon, author's voyage to and 

death at, xxviii-xxx 
Livy, 60, 92 
Locke, John, 26 



220 



SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 



Longinus, 45, 82 
" Lord Grizzle," xxxvi, xxxvii 
Louis XIV, 134 

Love in Several Masques, xiii, xxxiv 
Lowell, J. R., XXXV 
Lucan, 67, 69, 70, 72 
Lucian, 1, 5, 67, 68, 79, 81 
" Luckless," xxxviii 
Lucretius, 16, 112 
Lysander, 84 

Lyttelton, George, Lord, x, xxiii, 
xxiv, 5, 158 

Macaulay, Lord, Ixiv 

Machiavelli, 77 

" Man of Ross," John Kyrle, loi 

" Man of the Hill," Ivii 

Marivaux, 5, 20 

" Marplay," xxxix, xl 

Martial, 46 

Mary, Queen of England, 76 

Menander, 83 

Millar, . Andrew, publisher, xix, 

xxiv, XXV 
Miller, Philip, gardener, 32 
Mills, "William, 99 
Milton, John, 3, 20, 31, 66, 70, 

164 (?) 
Miscellanies, xxi, xxii, xxxiii, 1, 

Ixvii-lxix 
Miss Lticy in Town, xx 
" Miss Mathews," lix, Ixi 
Moliere, xiv, xxxviii, 5, 80, 116 
Moore Smythe, James, 58 
More's Utopia, 90 
Moyle, Walter, 67 
" Mr. Allworthy," Ivi, Ix 
" Mr. Wilson," xlix 
" Mrs. Atkinson," Ix, Ixi 
" Mrs. Fitz Patrick," Ivii 



" Mrs. Miller," Ivii 

" Mrs. Moneywood," xlii 

" Mrs. Slipslop," xlviii, xlix, 103 

" Mrs. Tow-wouse," xlii, xlix 

Murphy, Edward, x, xi, xxi 

Nepos, 23, 84 

Nero, 13, 51, 52, 54, 84, 116 
Newcastle, Duke of, xxviii 
New-Theatre, or French House, 

xiii, xvii 
North, Christopher, Ixiv 
" Northerton, Ensign," 62 

Of the Remedy of Affliction, Ixvii, 
Ixviii 

Oldmixon, John, 38 

On the Knowledge of the Charac- 
ters of Men, Ixvii, Ixviii 

Opera House in the Haymarket, 
xiii, xxxiv 

Orpheus, 63 

Otway, Thomas, xxxvi, 32 

Ovid, 70, 72, 168 

Pamela, xix, xx, xlv, xlvi, Ixxvi, 

22, 23, 24 

" Pamela Andrews," xlix 

" Parson Adams," xlviii, xlix, Ixi 

'• Parson Trulliber," xlix 

Pasquin, xvii, xxxiv, xlii, xliii, xliv 

Peacock's Index to English-speak- 
ing Students . . . at Ley den Uni- 
versity, xi 

Penlez, Bosavern, xxvi 

Persius, 53, 155 

Piantanida, Signior, 63 

Pitt, WilHam, 59 

Plato, 81, 90, 146, 147 

Plutarch, 23, 81, 84 



INDEX 



22 1 



Pluhis, the God of Riches, xx 

Pons Asinorum, 82 

Poor Laws, no, iii 

Pope, Alexander, 8, 38, 48, 55, 58, 

62, 64, 67, 68, 69, 72, 77, loi, 

140 
Priscian, 74 
Proposals for Makitig an Effectual 

Provision for the Poor, xxvii 

Quin, James, actor, 140 

Rabelais, 5, 66, 67, 80 
Ralph, James, xviii, Ixv 
Rapin, Paul de, 19 
Regnard, xxxviii 
Retz, Cardinal de, 108 
Richardson, Samuel, xix, xx, xxiv, 

xxv, xlv, xlvi, xlvii, Ixi, Ixxiv, 

Ixxv, Ixxvi, 79 
Rochester, Wilmot, Earl of, 159 
Rolle, Judge Henry, 75 
Romances by Calprenede, etc., 10 
Romeo and fiiliet, xxxvi 
Rowe, Nicholas, xxxvi, 29, 67 

St. James's Palace, 96 

St. James's Park, no 

St. Paul, 83 

St. Peter, 75 

Sappho, 63 

Scarron, 20 

Scipio, 98 

Scott, Sir Walter, xxiii, xxxv, Iii 

Seasonable Reproof ' [to Fielding), 

XV 

Seneca, 81 

Shaftesbury, Earl of, 11, 49, 130 
Shakespeare, the man and his 
works, xxxvi, Ixvii, Ixxvii, 5, 29, 



32, 39, 44, 65, 66, 76, 80, 94, 97, 
99, 116, 157, 160 

Sharpham Park, Fielding's birth- 
place, X 

Sheridan's Critic, xxxvii 

Sheriff, office of, hereditary, 105 

Sidney's Arcadia, 23 

Silius Italicus, 70 

" Sir Alexander Drawcansir," xxv, 
Ixvi 

Socrates, 126, 146, 147 

" Sophia Western," Ivi, lix, 3 

Spectator, Ixv \ 

" Squire Western," xliii, Ivi 

Statins, 70 

Steele, Sir Richard, Ixiv, Ixxix, 
64 

Stephen, Sir Leslie, xvii, xxi 

Stuart, Lady Louisa, xxii 

Suetonius, 52, 84 

Swift, Jonathan, 2, 5, 66, 78, 79 

Tarquin, 128 

Tatler, Ixv 

Telemaque, by Fenelon, 10 

Thackeray, W. M., xv, xxx, xxxi, 

Iv, lix, Ixii, Ixiii, Ixxviii 
Thames, manners on, 108, 109 
The Author' s Farce, xiii, xvi, xxxiv, 

xxxviii-xlii, xliii 
The Coffee-House Politician, xiii, 

xxxiv 
The Covent Garden Tragedy, xiv 
The Debauchees, xiv 
The Election, xliii 
The Golden Rump, xvii 
The Good-Natured Afaft, xviii 
The Grtib-Street Opera, xiv 
The Historical Register for the 

Year 1^36, xvii, xiii, xliii 



222 



SELECTED ESSAYS OF FIELDING 



The Intriguing Chambermaid, xvi, 

xxxviii 
The Jacobite'' s Jotirnal, xxiv, Ixvi 
The Letter Writers, xiv 
The Life and Death of Common 

Sense, xliii, xliv 
The Lottery, xiv 
The Miser, xiv, xxxviii 
The Mock-Doctor, xiv, xxxviii 
The Modern Husband, xiv 
The Pleasures of the Town, xxxiv 
The Rehearsal, xvii, xxxvii 
The Temple Beau, xiii, xxxiv 
The True Patriot, xxii, Ixvi 
The Unforticnate Jilt, xlix 
The Universal Gallant, xvi 
The Virgin Unmasked, xvi 
The Wedding Day, xviii 
Theatre Royal in Drury-Lane, xiii, 

xviii, 96, 98 
Theobald, Lev^'is, 66 
Thespis, 96 

Thomson, " Jemmy," xxxvi 
" Thwackum," Ivii, 62 
Thucydides, 60 
Titian, 61 
Tom Jo7ies, xvi, xxiv, xxvi, xxxii, 

xiii, xiv, lii-lviii, Ixvi, Ixix, Ixx, 

Ixxi, Ixxii, Ixxiv, Ixxvi, Ixxviii 
" Tom Jones," Iv, Ivi, Ixxvi 
Tom Thumb, xiii, xiv, xxxiv, xxxv- 

xxxvii, xliii 



" Tom Thumb," xxxvi 

Trajan, 51 

Trapp, Dr. Joseph, 64 

" Trapwit " and " Fustian," xliii 

Tyburn Hill, 54 

Universities of England, 119, 120 

Vagrant Act, 106 
Van Brugh, Sir John, xxxiv, 61 
Van Dyck, 61 
Veronese, Paolo, 100 
Villiers, Sir George, 50 
Virgil, 2, 37, 57, 59, 60, 64, 70 
Vitriarius, xi 
Voltaire, 20 

Walpole, Horace, xviii, xxiii 
Walpole, Sir Robert, xvii 
Warburton, William, xxxvi, 6 
Ward, Dr., xxix 
Westminster Hall, 42, 74 
W(hitehead), P(aul), 133 
Whitelocke, Bulstrode, 19 
Wilks, the actor, 26 
Wycherley, William, 32 

Xerxes, 50 

Young, Edward, 78, 140 
Young, Reverend William, xx, 
xlviii 



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